The death of lifehacking

Maybe the title is exaggerating things just a bit but the idea is floating out there that the Golden Era of lifehacks is in the past and we are left with nothing more than productivity porn. And who is out front in saying this? None other than the productivity porn king himself Merlin Mann!

On September 10th of this year Merlin wrote in a post titled “43 Folders: Time, Attention, and Creative Work”:

Friends, I’m done with “productivity” as a personal fetish or hobby. There are countless sites that are all too happy to vend stroke material for your joyless addiction to puns about procrastination and systems for generating more taxonomically satisfying meta-work. But, presently, you won’t find so much of that here.

Except inasmuch as it can help move aside barriers to finishing the projects that you claim matter to you, “productivity” is often a sprawling ghetto of well-marketed nonsense for people who really just need a ritalin and a hug. So, for myself, random tips and lists that aren’t anchored to solving a real-world problem for a smart but flawed adult with a mind are dead to me. Pour a forty on ‘em.

The first time I read this I laughed. After all Merlin Mann pioneered productivity porn. To hear him complaining about how many sites are now out there peddling the stuff of his making was laughable. At the same time the guy has a point. In that article he describes, quite correctly, the problems with the productivity blogosphere today. Too much noise and not enough signal and I found myself agreeing with him to the point that I cut all of it out of my life.

Well, that and a big chunk of other time-wasting material. I trimmed about 2/3rd of the subscriptions I had going in FeedDemon/NetNewWire. I’ve all but given up political blogs which have been my other, massive, black hole of time. I’ve got a lot to do and not enough time to do it all. The cognitive dissonance being created by all of that reading without any real purpose behind it was becoming deafening so no more.

And honestly the best part of his post was the discussion of “conversation” and “community” :

Stupid, venal, ignorant, self-linking comments from people who couldn’t be troubled to actually read the article. Angry forum posts full of personal attacks, giant avatars of Manga characters, and 4-vertical-inch signatures about which Golden Girl you are. Nonsense tagging, meta-commenting, ass-kissing, trolling, and…oooo!…video responses….neato! Please. It’s nuts and it’s pointless and it’s really cynical on the part of almost every publisher that allows that crap to go on.

Right on. My blog hasn’t hit the popularity curve the same way 43 Folders has Not yet anyhow but this is my blog. I’ll say what I want, when I want to say it. If you have something to say to me email me but I got sick of tools like this on my own site. If you like what I have to say please keep reading. If you don’t keep reading or leave. The decision is yours but I’m not going to justify myself to anyone else let alone turds pretending to be people like I mentioned above.

Thanks for the whining Merlin. I feel a bit lighter now myself

The “simple” task of concentrating

I’m pretty scatter-brained these days.  I think years and years of “multi-tasking” hasn’t done a whole lot for my powers of conentration.  Today I decided while eating lunch to only eat lunch…live in the moment as it were.  No books.  No computer.  No radio.  Nothing.  Just the simple act of eating.

I suppose in some ways that is similar to meditation and it was really damn hard.   My mind kept flitting all over the place.  I had to restrain myself from moving over to the computer to read something or send a friend an instant message.  I’ve been slowly weaning myself from various sources of information that have been nothing but time sinks.  Today was a quick plunge into the cold waters of single-tasking and boy…definitely not a simple thing.

History Channel show – Black Blizzard

The History Channel just aired a 2-hour program about the Dust Bowl in the 1930s in the central United States called Black Blizzard.  What struck me most during the program was the description of a series of massive storms that hit on April 14th, 1935 known as “Black Sunday”.  The History Channel had computer recreations of what this looked like, I assume based on photographs.  Here is an image from the show (and the History Channel website) showing one of the storms approaching.  Inside the car are a reporter and photographer who, after stopping and taking pictures of the approaching storm, are trying to outrun the storm.

During the show they also showed several real photographs of the storms of Black Sunday and doing a quick search on Wikipedia produced one spectacular photograph of a storm as it approached Spearman, Texas:

Here is another photograph of a storm as it approaches Stratford, Texas.  This photo is perhaps even better than the one above as the buildings closer to the camera give a better scale to the size of the storm:

According to DirecTV’s listing there is another showing of this program on 10/25 at 2:00PM Central Time.  It is definitely worth watching.

What is wrong with us as a society?

If anything this presidential election has been an eye opener. And these days it’s becoming kind of scary. With the world economy tanking the McCain/Palin campaign is stoking fear in their supporters with the “palling around with terrorists” crap. We are now hearing regular shouts of works like “terrorist”, “treason”, etc. coming from the people in the crowd. What the hell is going on in this country?

At McCain’s townhall meeting with supporters today in Minnesota we heard various ridiculous statements like the guy who is afraid of raising his still-to-be-born child in an Obama presidency because of the potential choice of judges. Ummm…what? We then heard a woman say that she doesn’t trust Obama because he’s an Arab. Today McCain finally said enough is enough and told his people that Obama is a decent guy and they should be respectful. But why should he have to say that at all? What is going on with these people? What are they reading? Who are they talking to to get these ridiculous ideas?

Also over the last few days we’ve been seeing ridiculous video like this:

or this:

He’s got the bloodlines? I’ve read about Obama and he’s an Arab?

Does the old woman at the McCain rally in Minnesota today know that in order to be President of the United States you have to be a natural born citizen?

Does the much younger woman in the first video above who says “He’s got the bloodlines” include white women from Kansas in the 1960s as Arab terrorists?

Do the idiots in the videos who say Obama is a Muslim know that he actually is a Christian? Why does that make a difference in the first place?

This kind of complete, willful, ignorance is ridiculous but also scary at the same time. I’ve got no problem with people who disagree with Obama on a policy standpoint but the rest of it is just crap. And to see the McCain/Palin campaign using these tactics is just digusting to me. It’s un-American and John McCain should be ashamed of himself.

To Mr. Robert Bolson: put this in your pipe and smoke it

This from the lead federal prosecutor of the Weathermen/Weather Undergroun in the 1970s:

Although I dearly wanted to obtain convictions against all the Weathermen, including Bill Ayers, I am very pleased to learn that he has become a responsible citizen.

So there you have it.  The lead prosecutor on the case is pleased to learn that Ayers has become a responsible citizen in the last 20-some years.   Is he “putrid and pathetic, partisan, and beyond the pale.” too?

Just wondering…

Sarah’s got skeletons in her closet … the AIP

Just to make sure everyone is on the same page: Barack Obama has been ‘palling around with terrorists’ because:

1. He sat on a board with William Ayers, former member of the Weather Underground.
2. He also launched his political career in the home of Williams Ayers, former member of the Weather Underground
3. Because William Ayers was a member of a radical Leftist group (the Weather Underground/Weathermen) during the Vietnam War, which opposed the Vietnam War and tried taking action against the US government in a series of bombings, he is (note is….not was) a terrorist.

OK?  Good.  We’re all set.

Now whoever believes that is BATSHIT CRAZY.   Let me suggest the article on Wikipedia about Bill Ayers and point specifically to what he’s been doing since 1984.

1. Ayers brings almost $50 million to Chicago for school reform projects via the Chicago Annenberg Challenge in 1995.
2. In 1997 he is Citizen of the Year in Chicago for his work on that project.
3. He is a member of the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, a philanthropic organization dedicated to anti-poverty issues.

To put it mildly he’s been a model citizen.

Let’s also note the section of the Wikipedia article which discusses  Barack Obama’s relationship to Ayers which, while friendly, doesn’t imply friendship.    The McCain campaign keeps wanting to say they’re friends because at some point Obama, or someone in his campaign,  said that Ayers and Obama are on friendly terms.  Barack Obama isn’t “palling around with terrorists” because Bill Ayers isn’t a terrorist and Ayers and Obama don’t see each other socially on a regular basis.

Now lets talk briefly about Sarah Palin.  She “pals around with” her husband Todd presumably since they are married. Todd was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party for seven years.  Let’s take a quick look at the AIP and their founder, Joe Vogler.
I’ll quote the founder:

“I’m an Alaskan, not an American. I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions.”

Let’s also take a look at the Goals of the AIP and pay particular attention to goal #2:

Become a separate and Independent Nation.

Hmm…become an independent nation…..how Confederate of them.

How about this quote, also from Vogler:

“My government is my worst enemy. I’m going to fight them with any means at hand.”

The man was a veritable treasure-trove of good quotes.

I say was because Vogler disappeared in 1993. His remains were found in 1994 and there was a confession that he was murdered during a plastic explosives deal gone bad. According to Wikipedia the chairwoman of the AIP says that he was executed, by the US government no less. Allegedly the government assassinated him because he was about to appear before the UN, at the invitation of Iran. Yeah Iran. Interesting isn’t it?

What is even more interesting is that Sarah Palin shot a video of congratulations for this group to be played at their convention: in March of this year. She even says “keep up the good work”.

So to recap:

1. Sarah Palin is married to Todd Palin – former member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party
2. Sarah Palin sends a nice video to the AIP during their convention telling them to “keep up the good work”.
3. AIP is formed by a guy who wants to secede from the United States and is willing to do anything required to do so.
4. Founder of AIP wants to appear before the UN at the invitation of Iran.
5. Unlike Bill Ayers Vogler did this stuff his whole adult life until his disappearance. One guy becomes and education reformer while the other wants to secede from the United States.

And Barack Obama is the one palling around with terrorists?

Google Calendar and external iCal feeds – DOA

I’ve been mucking around with adding my Remember the Milk lists as iCal event feeds to my Google Calendar account.  The idea of having tasks with due dates show up like “local” GCal events is great but it doesn’t work as I’d hoped.

Apparently I’m not the only one noticing this either based on this post on the GCal Google group.  That post notes that it takes hours for the feed to refresh and that there is no way to manually refresh it (you can in with a  30boxes.com calendar but that one leaves a lot to be desired).  Quite frankly it’s ridiculous that it takes hours.  At that point I can’t be sure that anything I entered actually shows up in GCal.   It would appear this behavior just isn’t an RTM issue as I see the same behavior with a feed from iWantSandy.com.

RTM does have two other options available, one for GCal, and if you’re using Firefox, one for GMail.  The GMail Firefox plugin is quite nice but I don’t want my tasks there…I want them in my calendar.  The option for GCal itself is OK but I’m picky and don’t want to have to click that checkmark to see what I have for the day.

I suppose that GCal is like so many other pieces of software, it gets you most of the way there but then dumps you off about a mile away from your intended destination.  This is a real disappointment. I know GCal is free but adding a manual refresh link for the external feeds can’t be that difficult.  The Google Group link above notes that “they’re looking into it”.  I hope it happens sometime soon.

Not surprisingly this works flawlessly on iCal on the Mac.  I can even see tasks with no due date set in the To-Do list part of iCal.   But I can’t use my Mac at work anymore where I really need to see these lists

Gotta have faith

After 25 years of being a Cub fan it’s hard to have faith at times   Oh how many times have I seen them totally melt down and blow a game.

Tonight against the Mets I thought for sure in the bottom of the 9th with the bases loaded and only 1 out in a tie game it was over.  Nope.   Bob Howry got out of it.  Before that Jeff Samardzija got out of a jam (though he did walk in the run that tied the game).  Before that Kevin Hart got out of a jam.

I should have had faith in the guys that have been winning all year.   Top of the 10th they got three runs and won the game.

This is the best team the Cubs have fielded in my lifetime.  At this point it comes down to one thing: gotta have faith.

Why buying classical music online at eMusic.com stinks

My title is a bit harsh?  Maybe.  But consider how eMusic.com prices their tracks (and for a bit of point-counterpoint I include classicsonline.com.

eMusic.com

You pay a monthly fee and they have tiers which split based on the number of tracks you can download per month.  This actually works out pretty well, except for classical music where it can become downright crazy.  My tier, which actually is a special tier since eMusic just recently changed their pricing, is 40 tracks for $11.99. For the challenged that is less than $0.40 per track.  The problem is that in the case of classical music many pieces have tracks that are very short, on the order of 15 seconds short.  So I’m paying the same price for that 15 second track as for a 10 minute track.

The problem compounds itself when you are considering purchasing one of the many fine options, such as Handel’s Messiah, which is 54 tracks (depening on which version you download…I’m looking at one on the  Chandos label).  I can’t get that all in one month without buying a booster pack from eMusic.

It would be nice if eMusic would offer an option to buy a whole album vs. looking at everything as just tracks (in other words….follow the model that iTunes and Amazon.com do).   I purchased Handel’s Messiah on Amazon as an mp3 download for $13.  Their per-track pricing is much more expensive.  C’mon eMusic!  Give us the option to buy full albums even it is a seperate charge!

Classicsonline.com

These guys price things really weird when talking per-track charges.  Tracks that are less than 5 minutes cost $0.99.  Tracks longer than 5 minutes cost $1.99. Tracks longer than 10 minutes cost $2.99.  Why would I want to buy from these guys again?  Yeah great selection.  Yeah its from Naxos but their definition of ‘affordable’ is interesting to say the least…at least on a per-track basis.

In their defense they do offer album downloads like Amazon and iTunes and it appears that the are using 320kbps these days for their downloads which is much better than when they launched.

In the end I wish eMusic were being smarter about what constitutes a track given how important it is without them offering album downloads at a discounted price.  Everything else aside it’s ridiculous that I have to pay the same thing for a 15 second track as a 10 minute one.

Corporate computer policies and GTD

What do you do when you can no longer use your computer platform of choice at work even when you’re more productive with it and are used to the tools available for it which are generally superior to the offerings (if they exist) on other platforms?  You go back to web applications.

I had been using a combination of GMail, Remember the Milk, and Google Calendar for my GTD/personal organization needs.  This was prior to getting a Mac.   At that time I started using Apple Mail and iCal both of which I have grown to love.   I then ended up getting an iPhone for my mobile needs and life was wonderful.  About 3 weeks ago the axe was dropped on me and my Mac usage at work so it’s back to the drawing board.

I have to say I’m still pretty livid about the corporate computer policies at work that seem to keep springing out of nowhere.   Not being able to use personal equipment on the corporate network is just the latest policy to fly in out of left field.  But all that aside where does that leave me?

I guess I move mail back to GMail which I never really abandoned.  I just set up Apple Mail to retrieve my email from the IMAP interface of GMail.    I actually also still used Google Calendar in the respect that I bought and installed Spanning Sync to sync my iCal calendars with Goolge Calendar.  For tasks lists I really hadn’t found a replacement for Remember the Milk but then again i wasn’t using it much anyhow.  My list-keeping fell off and I just scheduled things directly in the calendar either on specific days and times or just on specific days as all-day events.

I do really need to get back in to keeping task lists though but I’m less than thrilled with having to pay $25 for RTM Pro to get the iPhone interface.  I’d be more inclined at this point to give ToodleDo a try again since at $14.95 a year you get the iPhone interface and quite a bit more.  I like RTM but the $25 is hard to swallow simply for the iPhone CSS and HTML they send out.

At any rate I’m back to square one because of a corporate policy that doesn’t take into account an employee’s productivity.   Maybe things won’t be so bad since I had woven in my gmail/gcal use with the client apps on the Mac.  Once again though it all comes down to the list-keeping and task lists and I’m not sure what I’m going to do there.