Year 10

houses, wombats, sinuses, clouds, etc

May 24, 2010 by krisis

The house process continues to rage across my life like a wombat on methamphetamine. While I had that under control, I also came down with a bit of a complete sinus disaster on Thursday, which left me feeling like I had a blanket wrapped around my head for the past four days.

Have you tried fighting an allegorical rabid marsupial on uppers with a blanket wrapped around your head? Slightly more challenging than your typical allegorical wombat-fighting.

An angry wombat.

(PS: On wombats, Wikipedia says the following:

Wombats are Australian marsupials; they are short-legged, muscular quadrupeds, approximately 1 metre (39 in) in length with a very short tail. … [T]heir lack of fear means that they may display acts of aggression if provoked, or if they are simply in a bad mood. Its sheer weight makes a charging wild wombat capable of knocking an average-sized adult over, and their sharp teeth and powerful jaws can inflict severe wounds.

See that sidetrack I just took? That is my life for the past four days.)

Usually if I’m sick – even a little under the weather – I go on complete life lockdown. I’ll go to work or appointments, but I am low key and constantly snacking and hydrating.

Friday didn’t really allow for that. I went to a United Way business breakfast and awards, which meant I had to be up early and completely on-point w/r/t personal style. Somewhere in there i may have forgotten that I already took decongestant, so I took it again. At that point I think *i* began to resemble a wombat.

Then I had to condense a full workday into a less-than-full workday to deliver a huge project. Afterward, what was supposed to be a 10-minute appearance at a goodbye party turned into a four-hour odyssey, interrupted intermittently by calls to our Realtor until my phone died.

And, PS, for the first time in five years the internet in our house was completely down.

Yeah, so, not a lot of snacking and hydrating in there, which meant i woke up at 7am on Saturday in less than tip top shape – making it a perfect day to jump out of a plane with Gina and Wes.

Just ignore that Peter is carrying an entire roll of toilet paper with him as he straps into his ‘chute. “Why a roll of toilet paper,” you inquire? Because he is using boxes of tissues at the rate of 2boxes:3hrs.

Fast forward seven hours and half a roll of toilet paper and no skydive has occurred, due to cloud cover. Which, honestly, I know it’s a very complex process with a seemingly endless array of safety concerns, but when you’ve paid and you’re sitting there on the bench staring up at clouds with hunks of toilet tissue wedged up your nostrils you are thinking, what is the big fucking deal with the weather that it’s going to interfere with you THROWING ME OUT OF A PLANE!?

It’s probably all for the best because – as E pointed out – if your sinuses are completed jammed even after two boxes of tissues and half a roll of toilet paper you probably do not want to introduce massive, repeated pressure changes to ram that farther up into your brain.

I finally got my rest and hydration after that, but I had to make up for all the abuse of being out and about before I felt totally blanketless. And, while resting and hydrating and lacking internet, I didn’t get all that much done in the way of signing away my life in exchange for a charming 87-year-old Tudor.

And that was the last four days of my life.

I’ll come back and tell you the next actual chapter of the house project tomorrow. Ish. I have to make sure that wombat is corralled before I make a big show of talking about it.

Major Themes of the NYC #140conf

April 23, 2010 by krisis

The #140conf was a lot to absorb in just two days – over a hundred speakers across dozens of talks. I took copious notes to aid my absorption, many of which found their way onto the blog.

As I captured my minute-by-minute notes, I realized that organizer Jeff Pulver didn’t put together a mix tape of information – he composed a symphony. The major themes that emerged were developed, transposed, restated, and transformed by an orchestra of characters on the stage.

I’ve recapped those five major themes below. If you attended (or watched online), do you agree that these ideas were prevalent and consisten?

Did you also hear other prevailing melodies in the symphony? If so, what were they?

1. Twitter has proven its power as a instrument of change on both the macro and micro levels.
Over the course of the conference we heard about single people freed from rubble in Haiti and entire nations where governments were held accountable for their actions (including our own!). When it comes to changing our world, Twitter has moved past the proof-of-concept stage.

2. Education must become digitally native and socially connected.
Every day that parents and educators rely on the existing pedagogic paradigm and ignore the ubiquity of social technology in the lives of our students is a day they are under-serving them. This isn’t a change that is constrained by the digital divide – kids in Tanzania learned socially on the playground!

3. Journalism is not dead, but it’s undergoing a metamorphosis.
In a world of countless citizen reporters we need still journalists and editors to help us locate the underexposed stories and shape them into coherent, impactful narratives. If anything, journalists have more power than ever to expose the public to truth – especially if they can bridge the gap from existing broadcast vehicles to socially sourced and shared stories.

4. We’ve only begun to witness the power of contextual information to make social media hyper-local and hyper-personal.
FourSquare is the tip of the iceberg of new social technology that will harness your contextual information to provide a more localized and personalized experience based on the data you choose to reveal. There is a risk to privacy inherent in these technologies, and we must accept the responsibility of managing that risk even as the rules that define it continue to shift.

5. Brands and business models that translate themselves seamlessly to Social Media find their truest advocates there – both existing and new.
The power of consistent branding is more important than ever, and so is brand strategy. Whether you sell credit card, houses, or comic books, your enthusiastic audience is awaiting engagement that’s true to your brand.

Oh, and more anecdotally:

The majority of professionals use Tweetdeck and/or Co-Tweet.
Seriously, every laptop screen at every seat seemed to be viewing one or the other.

Social media people are the easiest people to network with – especially at #140conf.
Everyone has a story and everyone is genuinely interested in your story. Walking up to strangers can be scary, but the vast majority of them will be happy you did.

The Abridged #140conf (in video)

April 22, 2010 by krisis

All of the #140conf panels are now available online in video!

#140conf was a lot to digest, and so were my nearly two dozen posts on the subject. I know not everyone has time for either, and definitely not both.

In the 140 spirit of brevity, below I present my abridged version of the conference as told by just 14 can’t-miss talks. I left out a lot of panels I really loved or learned from in favor of the ones that pack the most punch as videos, and that help to tell the surprisingly consistent narrative I drew from the event.

Watching my abridged version will take a bit longer than 140 minutes, as the panel chats are 15-20 minutes in length.

Even if you aren’t on the list I likely still loved your talk, because I loved the entire event. If you want to see the entire conference and you have the time to watch one video a day for the next few months it would be time well spent.

The Future of Privacy @ #140conf: Day 2, pt. 6

April 21, 2010 by krisis

This talk goes on my highlights list – amazing content that all social media users should consider.

Privacy, Secrecy, Publicy – Stowe Boyd, Analyst, Advisor, and Futurist (@stoweboyd)

“We have secrecy for secret, privacy for private” but no word for things that are made (or made to remain) public.”

Every paragraph of this talk has a notable quotable. I encourage you to read it and consider what it means to you. It was easy to summarize rather than transcribe, because it was organized very well – the words are mine, but the content entirely belongs to Stowe.

It’s good enough for whales, dude.

December 12, 2009 by krisis

We just got through sitting in our parked car eating dumplings, a queer little Saturday night date in the midst of this insanity of rock shows and serious theatre and made up awards.

Based on two visits, I love nearly everything from Vanessa’s Dumpling House on Eldridge Street, but my shrimp dumplings were not what I expected. I’m not sure what that expectation was, but it wasn’t a dumpling with dozens of teeny shrimp all nestled inside with no seasoning to speak of.

Ever since I saw District 9 I’ve been a little leery of shrimp eating, and the dumpling of a thousand shrimps was not making the shrimp-eating experience any less ooky.

I turned to E for some comfort.

P: These dumplings have, like, thousands of tiny shrimp inside of them. It’s a little creepy.
E: Like sea monkeys!
P: You’re not helping.
E: Or krill!
P: Okay, now I’m done.
E: Hey, it’s good enough for whales, dude.

E and the band were pretty good, although I can already tell she’s not going to like the video because she wasn’t happy with her vocals (she’s been pretty sick since Thursday). Every time I mention a good spot she has a bad spot to match.

I’m always inconsolable after a performance, for better or for worse. Either I know in my heart it was awful, and no coaxing can convince me otherwise, or I’m sure I was excellent and need no further discussion on the topic (Monday being a prime example).

I won’t rattle her cage any further about it being good or not. We’re off to peek into bro’s cast party to catch up with various sibling units before bed.