Sharing with Google Reader

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TwittergoogleshareLike a lot of bloggers, I’m spending more and more time feeding my Twitter page. My friend David describes his “tweets” as the same smart-ass remarks he blurted out in class that left his pals in stitches and earned him a trip to the principal’s office. Twitter can be a little more personal and real-time than a blog post (“I’m in caffeine extremis at Coffee Zone, listening to Amy Winehouse”).

I’m also “sharing” more stuff from my Google Reader. I can hundreds of stories (from blogs and news sites) every day and when I see one I think is interesting, I “share” it and a link shows up in a light blue box on the right side of this page. To see more than the last 5 items, click the “Read More” link at the bottom. I usually don’t add anything to these. I just post them. But I really believe I’m better at spotting interesting/amusing stuff than coming up with it myself.

So, if you drop in and don’t see anything of interest, check the Twitter feed (which you can “follow”) and the Google Shared page.

Cyborg Anthropology

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I doubt there’s any shortage of scholarly papers on the sociological and anthropological effects of the mobile phone. I’ve never had a desire to search out and read any of them.

But my interest was piqued by Amber Case, one of the attendees at Gnomedex 8.0. A recent graduate, Amber describes her area of work and study as “Cyborg Anthropology.” Ooh. She was kind enough to send me a copy of her thesis: “The Cell Phone and Its Technosocial Sites of Engagement.” Here’s a snippet from the introduction:

“Mobile telephony has ushered in social geographies that are no longer entirely public or entirely private. The mobile phone allows place to exist in non-place, and privacy to exist in public. Never before have people been able to disembody their voices and talk across any distance, in almost any place. Cell phone technology has thus changed the dichotomies of place and non-place as well as the private and public dichotomies into a technological-human hybrid.”

I think I’ve had a whiff of this idea from all the time I spend communicating online. And when I break down and graft an iPhone to my hip, it’s only going to get better/worse.

“The Vagina Factor”

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Today I heard –for the first time– the phrase: “The Vagina Factor.” I’m sure there are more thoughtful explanations but this is the one that googled up for me:

“Its essentially saying that women really don’t follow nor care about
the issues as much as they’re just dying to vote VAGINA!!!!!!”

I mentioned this to Barb –who is very intelligent and very pro-choice (much loved by NARAL)– who replied: “I understand that.” So we now have “Yellow Dog Democrats” and “Vagina Republicans?”

Transcendence

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I came across the following idea and have been trying to find the source: “A problem is solved not by confronting directly, but by going to a level where no problem exists.” I think it might be Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. This either seems like complete horse shit or perfect sense. Nothing in between.

 

No satellite or cable TV? No problem.

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Our DirecTV works great until a heavy rain rolls in and blocks the signal. It’s called “rain fade” and you lose your signal a couple of minutes before the rain actually reaches earth.

That happened last night while we were watching the Democratic National Convention. It wa getting close to time for Obama to speak and, since we didn’t know how long it would last, I grabbed the MacBook and started streaming CNN’s live feed.

It was a little small and I didn’t bother to go full-screen because we were on the floor in the bedroom and could see it fine.

This has become so easy and mundane, it’s hardly worth mentioning. But that’s my point. Distribution is becoming –has become– a non-issue. In four years I have no doubt I would just swipe the iPhone and watch the speeh there.

Perhaps I’m still awestruck by this because I remember a time before color TV, cable, VCR, DVD, computers, web, etc.