Google Reader Hotting Up

Still trying to keep up as Google Reader morphs into a global discussion group; it may eventually need some kind of killfile capability on username since there’s no control over what is shared or commented. It could be Usenet Wars or Listserv Wars all over again.

But other than those minor concerns, it’s very cool seeing so much interesting shared content. I mostly read via iPhone app, which lacks the Like and Send To buttons, but if someone can point me to the appropriate Javascript for those, I could save it as bookmarks in Safari and add it to Bookmarks. I use that trick to send URLs to Twittelator and also to del.icio.us.

Endlessly Seeking The New New

We are a globeful of dopamine addicts. We endlessly seek and never find the newest new thing.

Slate: Seeking

Seeking. You can’t stop doing it. Sometimes it feels as if the basic drives for food, sex, and sleep have been overridden by a new need for endless nuggets of electronic information. We are so insatiably curious that we gather data even if it gets us in trouble. Google searches are becoming a cause of mistrials as jurors, after hearing testimony, ignore judges’ instructions and go look up facts for themselves. We search for information we don’t even care about. Nina Shen Rastogi confessed in Double X, “My boyfriend has threatened to break up with me if I keep whipping out my iPhone to look up random facts about celebrities when we’re out to dinner.” We reach the point that we wonder about our sanity. Virginia Heffernan in the New York Times said she became so obsessed with Twitter posts about the Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrest that she spent days “refreshing my search like a drugged monkey.”

We actually resemble nothing so much as those legendary lab rats that endlessly pressed a lever to give themselves a little electrical jolt to the brain. While we tap, tap away at our search engines, it appears we are stimulating the same system in our brains that scientists accidentally discovered more than 50 years ago when probing rat skulls.

After mulling that over from yesterday, as I trudged upstairs scrolling through my Google Reader feed and Twitter feeds (real, virtual, and feline) on the iPhone 3GS that’s become grafted to my body, I thought about how I’d spent the evening. I was in Second Life, watching a live webcast from the Netroots Nation convention in Pittsburgh in a separate screen as I sat “inworld” chatting with fellow travelers in both open and private channels. At the same time, I was going through some recent images I took on SL, deleting the culls and uploading the keepers to my avatar’s Flickr stream (which I keep separate from “real” photos on my “real” Flickr stream). Also simultaneously with this, while waiting for former Pres. Clinton to make the keynote address, I was listening to a music channel in the background, while listening to other speakers make their points for progressive change from the “netroots.” This music was either Internet radio playing in WinAmp, or a live musician singing blues standards “inworld” before somebody else was supposed to appear in a streamed audio chat (this was supposed to be the founder of Daily Kos, but there were technical issues).

As I noted all the things I was multitasking in public chat, I quipped “…too much?”

Came back the reply, “Not until you crash.”

So I thought about that after Second Life inevitably crashed on me, probably due to so many people then in attendance at both Netroots in Second Life, and SL’s own annual conference in San Francisco logging in to tell all their friends what well-known “avatarbrities” (I just totally made that up) look like in real life after the panel discussions were over.

Then, after work was over, I walked to the elevator reading my feed, read it on the way down, read it in a downstairs loo, read it walking out to the car, and read it in the car waiting for the air conditioning to cool off the interior. And shared, and shared, and shared. Because I had stuff, you see, stuff that I had read and approved of that other people might like to see, because it was new stuff to them. And then I ran across something that made me stop and actually slow down and think about what I was reading, rather than merely consuming in “speed-read” mode (I am a fast reader, and also I have always had a tendency towards hyperfocus).

As a recovering former Utahn, I keep an eye on anything counter-cultural coming out of Zion, which is why I happen to have Salt Lake’s entertaining City Weekly blog in my feed:

Exurbia Recast

A design competition tries to reinvent the suburban wasteland with flying ships and big box gardens. What they really need is as simple as a gin and tonic.

Big house. Vinyl siding. Manicured lawn. Two-car garage, maybe three. Backyards to hide from neighbors. Faux brick front.

Pavement for miles. Parking lots. Stores with acreage of stuff. Stuff to eat, stuff to build, stuff to consume, stuff to waste.

Work in the city. Drive on the interstate. Eat in the chain. Home. Rinse. Repeat.

Suburbia spreads like bindweed, one interconnected, land-swallowing swath of humanity. Beige blooms in the brown desert while its denizens stare at high-definition television shows about life in paradise. They bought their homes to live the American Dream, and spend the rest of their lives dreaming of escape.

Escape they will, fleeing to the latest and newest refuge. Maybe it’s the “green” subdivision with colorful houses, maybe it’s the high-rise condominiums with restaurants on the ground floor and a freeway entrance within walking distance. Maybe it’s a boat, a cabin, an RV. Or maybe it’s similar more of the same, super-sized.

America is a very young country, as anybody who has ever visited Europe can attest. Many Europeans have houses that are older than America, yet we as Americans search for everything new. We created a democratic civilization built with the most adaptable legal document ever created, yet we cannot adapt as a people to minor nuisances. Need four outlets in every room instead of the one in that 50-year old house? Buy a new house. Ipod adapter in the car because you cannot listen to the radio? Buy a new car? Bored with the long-standing cafe run by your neighbor? Hey, there’s an In N’ Out burger opening!

This ceaseless need to fulfill every want and desire has a number of negative impacts, most of them on a person’s soul. But there are also smaller ones, such as the eventual desertion of the existing new for the New New. That leaves behind empty homes, deserted lots, and discarded shopping malls. Eventually, something will have to be done with them.

Jesus.

Well, that was exactly what I didn’t want when we were buying this house, and that is exactly what we ended up with given our budget and our geographic location, jobs, and so on. I live that life, schlepping through grey suburbia all year and consuming images of more attractive, scenic or inspiring locales via television, movies, photographs, or total online immersion.  We don’t regret our decision buying our home, but I do regret that we’re not in a tree-lined, charmingly old-fashioned small-town looking suburb with rail service and bike paths within walking distance — that ws completely out of the question in our price range. We made a good decision after really looking hard for a long time.

A week ago, my husband David and I went looking for a new desktop computer for me. I had expressed a vague desire to have a better Second Life experience, and we thought we had grabbed a system off the shelf that had the right hardware for such things… but in a fit of consumerist confusion, I said (stupidly) that I thought a computer with an Intel logo would do fine, because it’s a brand name.

::facepalm:: Jesus.

So we grabbed this one box, after almost grabbing some other box. Which would have had a more powerful video graphics card tailor made for the online 3D experience, actually (not a hardcore gaming system, still pretty low-end). We took this one box home and loaded it up with a few programs that I like or use and got bookmarks set up and cleaned my desk and vacuumed and all that, and then I logged in to Second Life and realized my error. David had noticed as we opened the box that it wasn’t quite the right computer we’d started to buy, but oh, I just had to get it started up, so… yeah. And what with one thing and another, it’s now pretty much impossible (and embarassing) to return because I took a few days to realize that I’d have to leave my SL settings on “minimum quality” for pretty much ever if I didn’t want my experience to slow to the speed of an old-fashioned travelogue with slides, or a film strip, and in the meantime I’d gotten it all set up nice and pretty and bonded with it over the pretty, pretty Aero (glassy, flashy graphics). All because I didn’t print out the system requirements page and take it with me…

And yet on the other hand, for everything else I do with it other than Second Life, it’s fast, and powerful, and makes 2D images and videos look gorgeous. Games are gorgeous as long as the action is flat. It looks and feels great, and it happened to get a great review at C/NET, a site we’ve both come to trust because of their little “Hello, TiVo people” tech gadgetry review show. I’ll be able to take a lot of photos, and slide the compact flash card or one of several different kinds of storage media or cables into a handy little port right on the front, hidden under a little door when not in use. It’ll really be great, for everything other than Second Life. For that, it’ll be adequate, but not visually stunning.  A previous post about the new computer got automatically reposted on Facebook, and a friend immediately commented “Upgrade to Windows 7 NOW!!!”

So then I started looking into fixing my error by perhaps upgrading the video on the new machine, which turned into a big mess because this thing on my desk is a sleek, slim little beast, and there are very, very few options for what’s called a “small form factor (SFF)” system, especially one that has a very low power profile. I’d have to crack open a brand new computer just to add an itty bitty viddy card (only $59.99 after rebate!), and upgrade the power supply (only $29.99) literally “to boot.”

Unless… hey, wait, this guy has the same computer, and he got an nVdia 9500 GT PCIe low profile card to run… after a ridiculous amount of swapping to save on power demands.

Good God, brand new machine and I’m still endlessly seeking the new new gadget to make it into what I should have bought in the first place.

But enough about that, time to play Mahjong Titans, it looks and sounds so purdy… after making sure the title and first few lines of this post are under Twitter’s 140-character limit, that is.

Gateway… Open for Now

Bought a brand new Gateway, struggling to get used to Vista… hope this wasn’t a mistake.

Gateway SX2800-01 – CNET TV

Oh, well, maybe this was one of those impulse buys, even though C/NET really liked it and picked it for a recent Editor’s Choice award. My previous desktop computer (the one Riley liked to sleep on) would no longer boot up and since there’s a Tiger Direct/CompUSA nearby, it was decided (yay) that I would have a new computer rather than settle for replacing the old CPU and soldiering on with the previous system (which was made up out of extra parts David had)

One of the main goals was to have a better online experience, as well as faster graphics generally. We thought we were getting the best thing for the price, but when we got it home, David noticed the specs weren’t what he’d had in mind (there were a lot of choices in the same price range). This system was a good deal and it didn’t come with much that I didn’t need (no monitor, have one already) and at first when we got it up and running, I thought it wouldn’t run Second Life all that well… ARGH. However, after upgrading SL to the newest version, it didn’t seem to have many problems.

We’ll see how it goes. Everything is under warranty, anyway.

Moon Landing Sites

Loving the pictures of the lunar landing sites being sent back… you can even see a footpath left by Apollo 14’s astronauts in one image.
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | New images of Moon landing sites

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Photo

A US spacecraft has captured images of Apollo landing sites on the Moon, revealing hardware and a trail of footprints left on the lunar surface.

The release of the images coincides with the 40th anniversary of the first manned mission to land on the Moon.

The descent stages from the lunar modules which carried astronauts to and from the Moon can clearly be seen.

The image of the Apollo 14 landing site shows scientific instruments and an astronaut footpath in the lunar dust.

It is the first time hardware left on the Moon by the Apollo missions has been seen from lunar orbit.

The pictures were taken by Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter LRO spacecraft, which launched on 18 June.

I started wondering if it would be possible to see the tracks of the Lunar Rover on the larger images of Apollo 15/16/17, but only this one seems to show a faint straight line going from the landing site straight “east” and a little north. I don’t know if it’s a coincidental alignment of random shadows, or if it’s really the trail of the rover, but it heads toward the edge of a big crater, after what could be a course correction.

While looking for more information on the Lunar Rovers, I ran across something I missed last January. Check out this footage of “next year’s model” at this year’s Inaugural Parade. Man, it’s purdy and super-maneuverable… this isn’t your father’s Moon Buggy.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/2c2jN0k0k68" width="425" height="344" wmode="transparent" /]

I burst into tears watching this. I defy you not to do the same when one of the suited-up astronauts steps off the vehicle in front of the Presidential Reviewing Stand…

How to Make Winamp’s Search Go Away

I like Winamp for listening to music streams and Internet radio, but can’t stand the annoying address-bar search engine that got configured with it in Firefox. Here’s how to kill and replace it with the search engine of your choice.
How to configure Firefox address bar with Search Engines
Your Firefox address bar can not only be used for opening websites but also for searching as well. Yes, you can configure the Firefox address bar with various search engines like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft’s Live, and Wikipedia etc.

Oooh, Penguicon looks like fun…

My husband @fallingrock is into Linux, we’re geeks, and @wilw will be there too… very tempting!

Penguicon: the free software and science fiction con in southeast Michigan, May 1-3 – Boing Boing

“The weekend of May 1 through 3, Penguicon brings together science fiction, open source software, and other geek interests in southeast Michigan. In its seventh year, the attendance target for the convention is one thousand, three hundred and thirty seven. Guests of Honor are ubergeek Wil Wheaton, alternate reality game creator Jane McGonigal, Rasmus Lerdorf of PHP, steampunk author Sarah Hoyt, and John ‘maddog’ Hall of Linux International. Hack of Honor is the Candyfab project that prints 3D models with sugar.”

Over My Head: Shuttle and Station (and Spacebat?)

An executive at work today was visiting in the rows of agents and mentioned that she’s acquainted with the commander of the current Space Shuttle mission, Col. Lee Archambault.  Discovery  is currently docked with the International Space Station.  She also mentioned that she’d watched the combined orbital craft cross the sky overhead last night, and that it would make the transit over our area at about 734pm tonight, too. And she was right:

Human Space Flight (HSF) – Sightings

***** Schaumburg *****

SAT DATE/TIME Duration/Degrees Elevation/From/Towards

ISS Thu Mar 19/07:34 PM 3 39 36 above NW 11 above NE
ISS Thu Mar 19/09:10 PM 1 14 12 above NW 14 above NNW
ISS Fri Mar 20/08:01 PM 3 19 17 above NW 10 above NNE
ISS Sat Mar 21/08:29 PM 3 13 11 above NNW 10 above NNE
ISS Sun Mar 22/08:56 PM 1 12 10 above NNW 12 above N
ISS Mon Mar 23/07:47 PM 3 13 10 above NW 10 above NNE

Sorry, can’t make true columns without getting really frustrated and flailing helplessly. But I saw something that started fairly high in the northwest sky and angled upwards toward the northeast that was small, not blinking, very bright, and moving fast in a very straight line.

The small bat that had become attached to the foam that shields the external fuel tanks is thought to have perished during the liftoff, as wildlife experts concluded it was badly injured and wouldn’t survive a rescue if the launch was delayed. So its final flight was probably spent going out in a blaze of glory.  Who knows? As ***Dave notes, “Go, Spacebat, go!”

Reviews: The Language Of God, Inherit The Wind, Frost/Nixon

I started reading this book, but set it aside a while back. Now I need to get back into it, because we’re starting to get to some meaty stuff in the Adult Forum group I’m in at church.

Amazon: The Language of God

We’re discussing Evolution, Creationism Intelligent Design, and whether science and religion are as incompatible as some say. It’s a pretty free-ranging discussion group, as one member studied philosophy, another is a scholarly Jewish guy who runs the program, and the rest of us bring our own take to the party. For instance, I have a background or interest in evolution, paleontology, anthropology, and geology. But there’s also a lady in her 90’s who just likes interesting conversation and marvels at all the change she’s seen (and accepted) in her lifetime. And there’s a mixture of younger and older people batting topics around. It’s a lot of fun, but now I need to start doing a little more background reading. Vague memories of articles read during the week (and 30-year-old memories of college evolution and anthro classes) just won’t be enough in the weeks to come.

Inherit the Wind DVD

We started the series a few weeks back by watching “Inherit the Wind” together. I had to miss a couple of weeks due to my stupid winter sinus infection/cough, so I borrowed the DVD from the library last week and caught up with the ending Friday night. I already blogged about this earlier, but the ending didn’t hold many surprises.

I have to say that although I agree that this is a significant film, there are a lot of distractions that prevented me from really enjoying it and seeing beyond the rather creaky, stagy production values. I kept focusing on the odd details that seem ludicrous to the post-Millennial eye; did people really march around in Tennesee with beautifully printed protest signs, singing “That Old Time Religion?” Was the fundamentalist preacher character played by Claude Akins a Methodist or an old-line Episcopalian, as who else wore round dog collars all the time in the steaming hot South? And what was that junk they painted on his hair to change its color to grey? Also, David couldn’t stand to watch it because of all the singing, shouting, and praying that takes place in the opening reel, and he found the Matthew Brady/William Jennings Bryant character (played by Frederic March) excessively loud and annoying.

I’m glad I watched the movie, but the fundamentalist 20’s seen from the point of view of the post-McCarthy era 50’s made for a bigger suspension of disbelief than I was willing to deal with.

Last weekend my husband David and I went out to see Frost/Nixon, which we really enjoyed. First because it was done in a really naturalistic syle, and second because it took place in an era that we both lived through. The distractions of hair and clothing were there, but they were somehow a much more acceptable part of the experience because we both remembered when big sideburns and wide lapels on men looked cooool.

Also, it came in handy as background material for events of this week, during which our former governor evoked Nixon and the infamous tapes a few times on his rounds of the talk shows before he was ceremoniously booted from office. This might be a good DVD for the collection once it comes out.

Governor Blago’s Facebook Page

Unhappy birthday, Governor Blago. Please resign immediately for the good of the state, so Lt. Gov. Quinn can appoint someone untainted by your greed and mendacity as our second U.S. Senator.

There are actually fairly recent posted items and photos – Thanksgiving with the Chicago Christian Industrial League, lighting a Christmas tree for an event called “Keeping our kids warm and safe.” I think I must not have the flu, I hardly feel like barfing at all.

Detailed Info
Website:
http://www.illinois.gov/gov/
Gender:
Male
Relationship Status:
Married to
Patti Blagojevich
Birthday:
December 10, 1956
Political Views:
Moderate
Activities:
Governing, Running, Playing with Amy and Annie
Interests:
Healthcare, The Cubs
Favorite Music:
Elvis, The King
Favorite Books:
Anything History
Favorite TV Shows:
Sports, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm
Favorite Quotations:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Work Info

Employer:
State of Illinois
Position:
Governor
Time Period:
January 2003 – Present
Description:
Getting things done for people.

Contact Info
Email: governor@illinois.gov
Phone:
1-217-782-0244

Via Facebook | Rod Blagojevich

I just called the Governor’s Chicago office to leave a message urging the Governor to resign, following a shorter version of the suggested text at a Facebook event page called Call for Resignation:

Rod Blagojevich’s attorney has stated that the Governor has no plans to resign. His resignation is not only the right thing to do, it’s what is expected by the people of Illinois.

STARTING WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10 @ 9 AM CALL ROD BLAGOJEVICH’S OFFICE AND LET HIM KNOW THAT YOU WANT HIS RESIGNATION:

Call (217) 782-6830 or (312) 814-2121

Invite your friends to this event. Let’s get as many people as possible to call Blago’s office between Wednesday, December 10th and Thursday, December 11th!

I called the Chicago number, which is correct. I don’t know what the other number is, I used the contact page from the Illinois.gov site. A polite female voice answered, and I identified myself by name and town and referred to the Gov’s public statement about not resigning. I asked to leave a message: that the Governor should in fact resign for the good of the state of Illinois, so that Lt Gov. Quinn could quickly appoint our next U.S. Senator. Short, sweet, no drama. She thanked me and we said cordial goodbyes.

Now inviting my Illnois Facebook friends and relations to this Call for Resignation event.

Image of the Day: Jupiter and Venus and Meteor, Oh My

Another glorious image of Jupiter and Saturn, taken in Chile:

Night skies over Chilean mountain top observatories can be dark and clear, with glorious cosmic vistas. In this recent example, the plane of our Milky Way galaxy stretches parallel to the horizon, the galactic center’s star clusters, dark dust clouds, and glowing nebulae hovering in the west. Recorded after sunset, the wedge of light extending upward through the scene is Zodiacal light, sunlight scattered by dust along the solar system’s ecliptic plane. A faint meteor was also caught in the view, but approaching a conjunction, brilliant Venus and bright Jupiter dominate the skyscape. A close pairing through this weekend, by Monday, December 1, they will be joined by the young crescent Moon. Look west after sunset and the tight celestial triangle formed by Moon, Venus, and Jupiter, the three brightest beacons in the night, will be a spectacular sight, even from bright-sky urban locations all over the world.

Via Astronomy Picture of the Day