21st Century Misfit

Wow.  Doogtoons totally nailed the 80s vibe with this ‘find.’ I’m still wiping my eyes. Awesome.

I’ve been a fan of simplicity for a while, but I’ve never been able to get it working quite the way I wanted.  Turns out my sights were on the future, possibly on the unattainable, rather than on the here and now.  Aside from refocusing my personal goals, a la 101 Goals in 1001 Days, I’ve also been working on simplifying my life, primarily by eliminating clutter.

30 Days to a Simpler Life by Evatt and Cox is a great start to give you ideas.  I took some of the recommendations and implemented them forcefully.  For example, I eliminated about half the clothes from my closet and gave them to Goodwill and family members.  I’ve been getting rid of techie stuff and books which I’d had for years - I realized those specific projects just aren’t gonna happen.

Life Zero (which is also a great podcast available on iTunes) offers similar suggestions, and I used these to temper suggestions from the book.  For instance, I had not worn any of the clothes I discarded for over six months.  The Life Zero rules were recently revised, and I think they are now more general and in line with a larger population (and my intended use of them anyway).

The cool thing is that focusing goals and getting rid of material distractions is liberating.  I’ve felt less burdened and more able to concentrate on the things that I have determined are important.

(Update: Merlin Mann over at 43folders recommends It’s All Too Much for more tips on minimizing your stuff.  Time has a recent article on hardcore minimalists.  Finally, FreeCycle is a great way to give stuff to folks in your area.)

My son just got Guitar Hero III, and I was skeptical at first if it was worth it. I mean, if you want to play guitar, buy a guitar and practice, right?

I play guitar already, albeit badly, so I get a bye, okay? Well, let me just say, Guitar Hero III is awesome. It’s a blast, and it’s fun to play a video game to some sweet classics as well as some great new tunes.

The best thing about the game is that it’s exposing my kids to tunes they wouldn’t have otherwise heard. They’re past the age where they take my word that something is cool; they have to hear it from their friends or experience it themselves. And GH3 does that. I was dumbstruck when they asked me if I had some of the game music in my Mp3 collection. My daughter asked if I had Santana’s “Black Magic Woman,” and my son just walked through humming Stevie Ray Vaughn’s “Pride and Joy.” They’re now also familiar with some Social Distortion, Sex Pistols, Sonic Youth and Dead Kennedys.

I did my duty and compiled a playlist of almost all the GH tunes from my collection, and now both kids are outfitted with some great new music. I have a new favorite as well: “Lay Down” by Priestess. If you like Wolfmother, you’ll probably like Priestess.

In William McNeill’s World History, he makes an interesting point about evolution in general. He states that “when cultural evolution took over primacy from biological evolution, history in its strict and proper sense began.”

I noticed a parallel between his comment and Ray Kurzweil’s idea of the singularity, the point at which technology causes or becomes the next stage in human evolution. It is a point at which machine (artificial) intelligence overtakes human intelligence, allowing for unprecedented advances in human brain power and longevity. While it’s easy to argue that technology has allowed great leaps in these areas already, Kurzweil’s belief is that this will be a change so drastic as to make previous technological and biological evolutionary steps pale by comparison.

For more on Kurzweil’s thoughts, check out www.kurzweilai.net.

[Note: Kurzweil has his detractors, many of whom think we are still a long way from workable AI.  Jeff Hawkins thinks we're going down the wrong path; see Linking Brains, Computers in the WSJ for additional opinions. 7/15/08]

Leo Laporte, the host of some of my favorite podcasts, recently went on a photo-safari to Tasmania. During his trip, his podcasts net@night and This Week in Tech were on hiatus. In my search for fresh commuter podcast material, I stumbled across several excellent podcasts.

This Week in Photography is a great program that highlights recent developments in photography (of course) and photo-related software, like PhotoShop, Lightroom, and Aperture. Ironically, Leo was a guest of TWiP upon his return from Tasmania, and mentioned some great sites during that show. First, XYZ Adventures has a fantastic photo-gallery of the trip. Luminous Landscapes is another awesome site, with superb photo tutorials.

This Week in Media is another very worthwhile show. A recent episode mentions Tim Robbins’ keynote at the National Association of Broadcasters annual show in Las Vegas. Robbins lets loose on the NAB during his keynote. The organizers shut off video of the event, but the audio made it out, and it is worth a listen. Essentially, he calls out American Broadcasters on the abysmal state of programming and goads them to fix it. It is timely and well deserved feedback for the bottom feeders in the TV industry today, and he gets quite a few nervous laughs from the audience. We’ll see if his comments have any long-lasting impact. I hope so.

More versions on PaperTiger and AdAge.

After watching an amazing Adobe presentation from Dan Bliton on using manga as a training medium, I checked out Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. It’s making me look at things in a new way. In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud talks about how we iconify objects and ideas, and the process of conceptualization (learning) reminded me of On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins (interview) and Ways of Seeing by John Berger (excerpt).

Additionally, McCloud has some great thoughts on how a reader or audience identifies with characters in a book or movie, so distilling the character down to essential elements of humanity in comics and cartoons is more successful in getting the reader or audience to identify with those characters.

While discussing Fahrenheit 451 with a coworker this week, I was suddenly reminded of a 4th grade experience that was to teach me a lasting lesson.

While attending school in Eastern Oregon, my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. T. (no relation to Mr. T) told the class we would be starting daily journals. We were to write whatever came to mind, events of the day and whatnot. “If you want to write ‘Mrs. T. is a bitch, you can write that,’” she said.

For a week or so, we wrote in our journals. Then one day, when we came into school, a murmur started though the classroom. No one could find their journals in their desks. We asked Mrs. T. where they might be.

“I burned them,” she said.

Yes, in the burn barrel on the side of the playground(!) she had burned them. Evidently someone had written, “Mrs. T. is a bitch.” I remember looking down into the burn barrel and seeing the charred remains of 20 or so spiral-bound notebooks.

I still don’t know why she had us write in our journals. Her explanation to me is forgotten. However, I want to thank Mrs. T. for her lasting Orwellian lesson. She taught my class about privacy violated, trust broken, censorship, abuses of authority - essentially a lesson of Big Brother.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama is on a road trip and coming to Seattle in April. The five-day Seattle event takes places in multiple locations, including Key Arena and Qwest Field. Check out seedsofcompassion.com for more info and free tickets!

If you haven’t seen William Shatner perform Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man,’ you haven’t experienced true song butchery. First, listen to, and appreciate John’s version. Listen a couple times if you haven’t heard it before. Then, when you’re ready, steel yourself, then douse yourself in the lighter fluid and flames that is Shatner singing.

Yes, this is the same version covered by Stewie Griffin on Family Guy.

For something truly amazing, check out this version by Todd Taylor. He also does a version of ‘Stairway to Heaven.’

I recently stumbled across the cargo bike community and was amazed at the number of options for folks who want to dump their cars. Clearly, 10-speed commuter bikes have been around for years, but people who want to get groceries or take their kids to daycare have an increasing number of options.

I was really impressed with the cargo carrying capacity of the Xtracycle and Mundo bike, which are extended-length frames with cargo space behind the rider. The efforts of WorldBike to make something like the Big Boda available to entrepreneurs in developing countries are awesome. To take the cake, the Bakfiet is an incredible feat of engineering which can replace the family car.

Interestingly, the German city of Muenster has an extensive system to encourage cycling. Gilbert Hanson visited the city in 2000 and has an impressive array of information on bicycle promotion there.

To sum things up, watch a cool video from ‘global cooler’ kipchoge.