January 2012
5 posts
Practically Opaque
Thank you for visiting.
I started Practical Opacity to collect thoughts and ideas that were counter to the increasing radical transparancy I feel is being demanded of us all in this age of constant connection, social networking, and life streaming. I feel that there is a corresponding need for balance and for choosing purposefully to opt-out of those things which do not respect your privacy or...
About Those Facebook Privacy Settings... » Blog of... →
So, you’ve done it all right. You’ve meticulously chosen your Facebook privacy settings so that only your closest friends can see the most personal information about you. No one else has access. Or so you think.
Turns out, it’s more like your designated closest friends and anyone who advertises on Facebook. (And, P.S., anyone *can* advertise on Facebook. Doesn’t have to be a business.)
Just...
Cloak VPN :: Push Button Security →
Cloak is a service for your Mac, iPhone, and iPad that keeps you safe when you’re connected to public wireless networks like those found at coffee shops, hotels, airports, and conferences.
It is basically an easy to use and configure VPN service for those without the skills or desire to set up their own. A good idea executed well.
Let’s Unsubscribe From It All →
I am getting to the point where I want to stop everyone but people I know and work with from emailing me. I don’t want people calling me on my phone to sell me stuff or inform me of things that they think I should know. My email is rapidly becoming that way. No more newsletters, advertisements, or enticements.
Getting Back to Growth — Steve Pavlina →
In addition to refocusing on my own path of growth in 2012 and closing the door on daily social networking, I’d like to reorient my social life to spend more time connecting with others who have similar priorities when it comes to pursuing growth experiences. I had hoped I might meet such people through the social networks surrounding my work, but that didn’t happen. One reason is that such...
December 2011
5 posts
The Dangerous Effects of Reading | Certain Extent →
If the world overwhelms you with its constant production of useless crap which you filter more and more to things that only interest you can I calmly suggest that you just create things that you like and cut out the rest of the world as a middle-man to your happiness?
This sounds like a good plan.
(via Chris Long)
PhotoBlog - Accidental photographer: Making... →
The fairly new activity of constantly checking our phones, I mean ascertaining our dual existence, both in real life and in the virtual world of social networks, switching from the people present in flesh and blood and the uninterrupted conversation with “friends” we have across time zones and borders, is an interesting phenomenon. I was first stunned by the faculty we have to...
Six months without an iPhone: Shotgun | 52 Tiger →
Perhaps you’ve had an experience like this. You own a car and typically do the driving. Then, for whatever reason, you spend a trip in the passenger seat and a route you’ve driven countless times looks different. No longer required to watch the road and the other motorists, you can look at passing houses and buildings, playgrounds, corner stores and more. You see things you never noticed despite...
Seth's Blog: Getting serious about the attention... →
Every interaction comes with a cost. Not in cash money, but in something worth even more: the attention of the person you’re interacting with.
Seth strikes again.
Gwen Bell - Digital Sabbatical →
Gwen’s page on digital sabbaticals is actually an excellent resource on the subject full of interesting links, reasons, ideas, and inspiration.
I quit twitter, so you'll need to find me in other... →
I want to experiment with more slow-cooked communications, and with making deeper connections to the people I interact with.
Saying no is actually saying yes to other things.
danah boyd | apophenia » NOTICE: Email sabbatical... →
Over the years, I have learned that vacation isn’t vacation if you come home to thousands of pending emails. Cuz then you spend most of vacation worrying about the work that’s piling up. So, over seven years ago, I started instituting “email sabbaticals” in my life. While I’m away, my lovely procmail file (aka “filtering software”) will direct all of my email to /dev/null (aka “the permanent...
November 2011
3 posts
“Path is private by default. You are always in control of your moments and who...”
– Path — About
Any company that makes privacy the default starts with an immediate cache of trust in my book. I wish more companies would see it this way and therefore not have to work so hard trying to earn it.
July 2011
2 posts
Save Our Inboxes! Adopt the Email Charter! →
Love everything about this. Sign me up.
(via Ben Brooks)
Twitter Blog: 200 million Tweets per day →
Halfway through 2011, users on Twitter are now sending 200 million Tweets per day. For context on the speed of Twitter’s growth, in January of 2009, users sent two million Tweets a day, and one year ago they posted 65 million a day. For perspective, every day, the world writes the equivalent of a 10 million-page book in Tweets or 8,163 copies of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Reading this much...
June 2011
7 posts
Internet users now have more and closer friends... →
In a new study done by the Pew Research Center, collections of data from thousands of participants showed that people who use social networking services are now not only likely to have larger networks than those who don’t, but also have more close friends. The authors of the study don’t cite technology as the cause of our newfound friendliness, but those inclined toward social...
Bird Brain: Why I'm limiting Twitter - Rick... →
If you pay attention to my blog, you know that I’m not exactly BFF with my iPad. That’s about to change. It will become my dedicated, time-wasting device. Twitter, Reeder, and Instapaper are all welcome here. I hope that by physically restricting these apps to the iPad, I’ll have less temptation when carrying around my iPhone or working on my Mac. An ideal day for me will conclude by...
Seth's Blog: In praise of programming →
We’re all programmers now. We all have to decide what to post next, what to point to next, what to launch next. Is there a skill in dreaming up Must-See Thursday nights, or in establishing a season of Shakespeare or even in deciding what’s on the special list at the restaurant? I think there is.
Social Fax Machines : James Shelley →
The fax machine analogy raises a couple interesting points. Firstly: just because technology makes a certain mode of communication feasible, it does automatically guarantee the medium provides any certain, practical degree of usefulness. At some point — while sitting there with a pile of faxes on your lap — you’d invariably ask yourself: “Why am I spending my time reading material that wasn’t...
Minimal Mac | Dropp (and the rise of... →
Look! I’m trying to coin a term!
I see stuff like this trending as the next ”big thing”.
Jim Gilliam - The Internet Is My Religion at... →
God is just what happens when humanity is connected… We have faith that people connected can create a new world.
This is an incredibly inspiring and important talk. Do yourself a favor and stop everything you are doing and watch this. Seriously.
w/ – Blog › Chris Messina →
“As we continue our quest to build new types of networks which maintain their quality over time, we have been fascinated by the idea of an interaction network. Or, as we enjoy calling it, the With Graph.”
Chris Messina points us to With, a new iPhone app from the folks who brought you Path. The idea: a fun and simple way to track and are who you are with.
May 2011
7 posts
Changing The Flow
This is a heads up that I’m going to be changing the way I approach Twitter for the foreseeable future. Here is the new plan:
I will be treating my stream more like a microblog. I will be posting updates mainly through Reeder, Quotebook, Birdhouse, etc. This is an attempt to improve the quality and the value of the stuff I’m sharing. I want to share things that I think will add value to your...
Is It Worth the Interruption? : James Shelley →
Before you post it, tweet it, or press that Submit button, ask yourself one simple question: Is it worth the interruption that it will cause others? Supposing the roles were reversed, would you desire that article of data you are publishing to invade your consciousness?
A good rule of thumb to follow.
the second eclectic: Amish Technology →
Face-to-face communication is important to the Amish, but the phone erodes it almost imperceptibly by offering approximate communication. Thus, in their approach to the telephone, “Amish leaders have tried to maintain the primacy of communication in the context of community” (Kraybill and Olshan 1994:105).
The more things change…
(via Michael Dore)
“You’re going to make a lot of great connections on Twitter, but don’t feel the...”
– The Purpose Varies — by Chris Bowler
Follow Me, Follow You on Twitter — The Brooks... →
I do have a filter in Twitter for Mac and it is called following/unfollowing. I don’t want to hear only what I want to hear from people I follow — I want to hear everything they say, whether I like it or not, if that starts to become annoying then I find myself asking the tough question: Why am I still following this person?
Twitter : James Shelley →
If I don’t follow you on Twitter any more, please don’t take it personally: without some criteria as to why I use Twitter in the first place, I have nowhere to draw a line that guards me against a total distraction meltdown here.
A sane approach. A sensible strategy. A must read.
Keeping It Straight – You, Me, & Everything Else →
My new book filled with clear, direct, and useful observations on productivity, life, and living. Please check it out.
April 2011
2 posts
“Your first 10,000 hours on the Net are all about visibility. The next?...”
– Ev Bogue
Column Five Media – Infographic: Do You Need a... →
Cute.
March 2011
4 posts
Seth's Blog: Are you making something? →
Simple but bold: Only use your computer for work. Real work. The work of making something. Have a second device, perhaps an iPad, and use it for games, web commenting, online shopping, networking… anything that doesn’t directly create valued output (no need to have an argument here about which is which, which is work and which is not… draw a line, any line, and separate the two...
Opt Out →
A list of trusted sources for opting-out of junk mail, phone books, telemarketing, and online data sharing. Great resource.
(via Neven Mrgan)
Evbogue.com: Digital Work at the Future of Humans... →
How to use Twitter in a way that builds your intuition:
1. Follow less than 150 people.
2. Follow people who look familiar.
3. Unfollow anyone you stop recognizing.
4. Don’t worry about who’s following you.
5. Feel your way down from 150 follows to zero.
6. Use a picture of your face.
7. Close your eyes, feel the space in-between the tweets.
I believe this will help you and us create a...
Caterina.net» Blog Archive » FOMO and Social Media →
To be always filled with craving and desire (also called defilement, affliction) is one of the Three Poisons of Buddhism, called kilesa, and it makes you a slave. There is true meaning in social media—real connections, real friendships, devotion, humor, sacrifice, joy, depth, love. And this is what we are looking for when we log on. Most of the world is profane, not sacred, in the Mircea Eliade...
February 2011
6 posts
Information overload? Time to relax then |... →
After years of discovering a new information resource, being consumed by it, finding it too much to bear, then getting on top of it, only to find myself being sucked under by another, faster information resource, I’ve concluded that the real secret to beating information overload isn’t better filters: it’s cultivating a “probabilistic” frame of mind.
I’ve...
Confessions of a Tech Apostate - Newsweek →
Remember when computers were supposed to save us time? Now it seems just the opposite. The Internet just keeps giving us more ways to do nothing.
Not sure I agree whole heartedly but it’s a heck of a rant.
End of the Social Media Era : Human era begins :... →
The great problem of technology is that it can neglect the biggest component of human evolution — the heart. Computers need us to give them a soul. “Data transfers” direct from the heart are the most powerful element of human evolution possible, and you don’t need a freakin’ FB account to do it.
Nothing more I could add to that. Every word of this is fantastic.
Ten Mindful Ways to Use Social Media | Tricycle →
I’ve realized, however, that the greatest lesson we can all learn is that less is enough. In a time when connections can seem like commodities and online interactions can become casually inauthentic, mindfulness is not just a matter of fostering increased awareness. It’s about relating meaningfully to other people and ourselves.
It’s hard to go wrong with any of the recommendations on...
Take Back Your Attention - The Energy Project →
Unfortunately, we each have an infinite capacity for self-deception. Even our prefrontal cortex — our reflective mind — can get co-opted by our most urgent and primitive desires. Rather than making thoughtful, reasoned choices, we often end up using the highest capacities of our brain to rationalize, justify and minimize our self-destructive behaviors.
Some wonderful ideas and reasoned...
Don'ts: walking while texting →
This is a must read. Trust me.
January 2011
5 posts
Seth's Blog: Texting while working →
You’re competing against people in a state of flow, people who are truly committed, people who care deeply about the outcome. You can’t merely wing it and expect to keep up with them. Setting aside all the safety valves and pleasant distractions is the first way to send yourself the message that you’re playing for keeps.
A public service announcement from Seth.
Link Rot « The Bygone Bureau →
The web is like any other sprawling city, and maybe worse: it’s so damn rickety it’s a minor miracle it hasn’t collapsed entirely. When you link, you do so trusting that the data to which you direct your readers won’t just up and disappear into the virtual ether. Except that, inevitably, it will — the short history of the web has established that much.
Fantastic post about our sometimes...
WatchAmber Case: We are all cyborgs now | Video on TED.com
(via Gwen Bell)
Seth's Blog: Lost in a digital world →
Some say that the problem of our age is that continuous partial attention, this never ending non-stop distraction, addles the brain and prevents us from being productive. Not quite.
The danger is not distraction, the danger is the ability to hide.
Another insightful post from Seth.
Your head will collapse if there’s nothing in it |... →
I’ve discovered that I really can still read an entire book, or have a slow conversations, or spend hours looking at artwork. But in order to transition into that mode, I need to disconnect from the information pipeline first. No doubt I’m missing an opportunity here or there, but at the same time I’m getting back my mind, which as we all know is a terrible thing to waste, or misplace, or...
December 2010
5 posts
Archive Fever: a love letter to the post real-time... →
Without deliberate planning, we have created amazing new tools for remembering. The real-time web might just be the most elaborate and widely-adopted architecture for self-archival ever created.
An argument that the “next big thing” after the real time nature of Twitter and Facebook may very well be how to store, search, and retrieve this vast archive of our digital selves.
As...
Keeping an email address secret won't hide it from... →
So I publish my email address, because I have yet to see any compelling evidence that hiding your email address or using silly techniques like spelling it out (doctorowATcraphoundDOTcom) is any proof against email harvesters. I can think of a way of detecting and converting such obfuscated email addresses, and if I can think of it, so can some spambot author, and she can write the code to do...
“More than ever, I’m realising that the old problem of overcoming...”
– Cory Doctorow – The Internet Problem: when an abundance of choice becomes an issue | Technology | guardian.co.uk
A radical pessimist's guide to the next 10 years -... →
In the same way you can never go backward to a slower computer, you can never go backward to a lessened state of connectedness
I believe this to be true. The challenge, then, is for us all to aggressively manage the expectations, those within and from others, of our time and attention.
Here is another gem from the guide:
You’ll spend a lot of your time feeling like a dog leashed to a...