Quote of the day

"Americans will always do the right things after all the other possibilities have been exhausted"

- William Churchill

Tagging and foldering « Jon Udell

Tagging and foldering « Jon Udell

Dilbert Gets It

I know i'm not the only one who thinks Scott Adams has a spy in my company, but it sure feels that way. Check out this Dilbert Comic gem and let me know if you have the feeling too.

Flight Patterns

I have always enjoyed and been fascinated by avation. I grew up close to a small airpot in Oklahoma City, and i have fond memories of going the the fence and watching the planes. I have also had the pleasure of workin in the industry supporting American Airlines in the late 90's. I got to see their maintenance facilities up close.

I also like maps and mapping, so i found myslef fascinated by this video on YouTube called Flight Patterns. I watched this over and over and I still come back to it on occasion. I hope you like it as much as I do!

Value Your Time

I have been working hard to get back into the GTD mode. I started last week with over 1400 emails in my inbox, and as of right now there are 4 items left. I needed a little refresher course in GTD so I reviewed a great series by Merlin Mann titled Inbox Zero Series. Merlin is a GTD guru and email Ninja. His blog 43 Folders is one of the most well read in the GTD world.

The last article in the series Better Practices for staying (near) zero inlcudes this nugget on Valuing Your Time:

Well, I promise you, this is some serious, practical, non-hippie advice. It’s day-one stuff, kids, because if you don’t learn to value your time, you will quickly find a volunteer army of slackers who will be more than happy to help waste it for you. “Time burglars,” the newly-efficient Bart Simpson might have called them (”You can’t just go off Focusyn!”). Email is the most dependable modern location to witness your time being frittered away by strangers, but you are now officially Vice-President in Charge of Ensuring That Your Time is Not Wasted by Strangers. Congratulations on the promotion.

This also means not half-assing the attention you pay to the task at hand; do email when you do email — don’t just flip through it while thinking about Lost or fretting over your thinning hairline or wondering how you’ll paper train your new Labradoodle, Barney. Take these tasks seriously, and stop depending on email as your fickle source for status, affection, and thumb exercises.

Serious, straightforward, no bullshit advice.

Peace.

Shuttle Discovery takes off at night

This is a very cool picture of the Space Shuttle Discovery taking of at night. very cool shot!

Internet Debate..

Ratbert gets it i wonder if i do.

More of the Flaming Lips - UFO's at the Zoo

First, my applogizes to Unsure Shot who i refered to as a guy, when in fact she's a woman. Sorry for the gender mismatch. She has posted some more photos from the show, check em out.

There also a set by Jason B. titled
Flaming Lips 09-15-2006 - a photoset on Flickr thats has some really good shots!

these are all great reminders of a great evening, thanks!

UFOs at the Zoo

I was very lucky to have seen the Flaming Lips play at the OKC Zoo Ampitheater last Friday night. Wayne and the boys introduced the world to the UFO, and we liked it very much. The subtitle to the show was OSO ( Orgasmic Sensory Overload) which seems an apt description of the event.

There are a number of good photos on Flicker, along with some really bad cam phone shots. Flicker user "unsure shot" has some nice shots and some funy commentary. Check HER stuff out at
UFO! - a photoset on Flickr

Also see my friend Chris at The Chris Centered Universe for his take on the show, and a nice picture of him, his friend Linda, and his daughter Olivia giving Wayne a big hug.

I came home with 6 whistles. i just turn'em on and smile!

Empowerment

This Dilbert Comic shows Scot Adams very cynical and insightful view of empowerment in the modern corporation. People are supposed to be Empowered, as long as they remember to meet the corporate goals. Wally's sin - being empowered to meet his own goals at the cost of the corporation.

Neil Young Rocks the Free World

On July 28th I was present for the Neil Young concert in Portland, Oregon. He was playing with some old friends, including David Crosby, Steven Stills, and Graham Nash, in fact it is marketed as a CSNY show, but it was mostly a Neil Young concert.

They played all the songs form Neil's new album, "Living with War" which is available online at http://www.neilyoung.com/lwwtoday/index.html. It is a rough, passionate mix, the focus is the message, and it is a reminder of why Neil is know as the godfather of grunge and a leader of social conscious.

Off to work - I’ll write more when I get time!

Procrastination = unconscious

Anne Gennett is a coach with the David Allen Company who blogs ideas for those interested in David's approach to "Getting Things Done." Her lastest article titled
The 'I'll do it later' Conundrum started a thought train reagrding the anti-spiritual practice of procrastination. Take a few minutes to read her article and see if it has the same effect on you.

The effect could have been personnal, as I read this instead of making the next phone call on my list... but i doubt it, it seems to universal.

21st Centry Wiretapping

Ed Felton is posting a series of thoughtful articles on wiretapping at Freedom to Tinker.

So government will have greater eavesdropping capabilities and, more interestingly, it will have different capabilities. How should we respond? Surely it is not right simply to let government do whatever it wants — this has never been our policy. Nor can it be right to let government do no wiretapping at all — this has not been our policy either. What we need to understand is where to draw the line, and what kind of oversight and safeguards we need to keep our government near the line we have drawn.

Gone in 20 Minutes: using laptops to steal cars

Looks like the hackers have hooked up with the chop-shop teams to steal new cars. The article Gone in 20 Minutes: using laptops to steal cars will make people with an new electronic fob think twice about the security of their vehicle.

Clusterfuck Nation

Nice to someone thinking out of the box on the impacts of switching to BioDiesel. Jim Kunstler minces no words on the subject at his cynical site Clusterfuck Nation. Jim forgot to put on the green colored glasses...

O'Reilly Network: Hacking Your Way Off The Utility Grid

I love to see tech heads utilizing renewables to generate power. This is an interesting article and being on O'Reilly should insure it gets seen by a lot of people with the skills and motivation to implement similar solutions.

O'Reilly Network: Hacking Your Way Off The Utility Grid

Adam Bosworth - Thoughts On Computing

Post like this one should be required reading for people involved with SW design and development. We often forget that the users rarely follow the use cases we so meticulous worked developed with their leaders and they quickly extend a system, often in a very good way if flexibility is a design goal.