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New Year’s Resolutions 2010

January 1, 2010 in Personal / Relationships by Ezra S F | 3 comments

My resolutions for 2009 involved reading good stuff and being more social. More or less they were successful. I read fulfilled the reading goal by October. To fulfill the social goal, I attended most of the BrunchBunch, Athens Flickr Meetups, Athens Strobist Meetups, and even lunches with coworkers. These were by and large successful.

So, in thinking about 2010, my intentions for this year are:

  1. Read 12,000 pages. Unlike last year, I am not going to restrict the type of content except to say it must be in a book. Magazines, blogs, and news do not count. If they did, then I’d make the goal in a couple months.
  2. Learn to cook 20 new dishes. Considering I don’t cook, this is by far the most ambitious resolution. I’ll need to buy a cookbook.
  3. Participate in Project 365. (tips to get started) I considered 365 Days, but I don’t think I am up to daily self portraits. This is a Flickr group where people post daily submissions for every day of the year. I’ve previously failed this one, but I made it to 99 photos. Will be interesting with just an SLR and a bad phone camera.
  4. Have fun now not later. I haven’t visited the local state parks or much in Atlanta or even taken a personal trip. I keep procrastinating expecting it to be better later, making me an exemplar of Procrastination of Enjoyable Experiences. (Also Carpe Diem? Maybe Tomorrow in NYT)

There lots of other things in the back of my mind for things I ought to accomplish this year.

  • I only went out on one date for all of 2009, which is actually more than 2007 and 2008 combined. Assuming I don’t chicken out, I may equal that in January 2010?
  • I need to cull the blog list down from 403 subscriptions to around 200.
  • No flying at all for 2009? The furthest I drove was to Panama City, FL? Obviously I should travel more.

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    Me Social Media

    December 18, 2009 in Photography, Social by Ezra S F | No comments

    Dan Schultz doesn’t like Facebook or Twitter because they are too focussed on individual expression rather than the community.

    That may be because he is using them wrong. I liked photography as a kid, but I didn’t know any photographers. Flickr happened to come into my life just after I bought my first digital camera. My participation in photography exploded. Not because I had a way to post my photos but because I had a way to find other local photographers for mutual encouragement. Even better was forming local groups to encourage people to meet. The value of Flickr is developing the community.

    Worldwide Photowalk Panorama

    Similarly, I got into Twitter because my community, peers at other universities running the same software as myself, were seeking help there. Any place with answers to the problems we face, which is where people with the answers are watching, is where we go. Twitter was the place to get the attention of the right people not a forum like phpBB. (There are already lots of email lists.) My other community, people using the software I run are also on Twitter. I’ve resolved issues for many clients by finding their public complaints and offering solutions. When my focus changed away from using Twitter for the community is when I stopped liking Twitter.

    Personally, I have yet to find much sense of community in the phpBB, Google Wave, and Ning. So I find it strange these are the exemplars of community applications. They seem fractured so one finds dozens of groups to covering the same interest. Sometimes this is because some moderator upset a portion of the community with draconian behavior causing people to form an alternative community. Bad blood exists for a while. Other times people set up a new community unaware others exist.


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    You’re So Vain

    October 31, 2009 in Personal / Relationships by Ezra S F | No comments

    You probably think this blog is about you.

    Well… Maybe….

    I’m not even sure this blog is about me. Probably it is not about you. Instead, it making a generalization. You know, those statements which are based on false reductionist approaches and assume some random event represents the key to solving everything.

    Anyway.

    Stop taking things personally.

    Unless derogatory language is used to directly describe you (specifically named or tonal inflection used on a noun which can only refer to you), something is not a personal attack.

    Your operating system of choice… is… not… you. Unless you were the creator, in which case you do have the right to think of yourself as the operating system. Ironically, the creators seem to be the only sane ones.

    The science fiction serials or soap operas you watch… are… not… you.

    The software of the human brain seeks to identify when others have wronged us in some way. This justifies violence or at least harsh words. Except, this software was designed for interactions thousands of years ago when we operated in small tribal groups where we knew the people with which we daily interacted. Someone who wronged us would be someone who knew where we slept. Not a faceless entity anywhere on the globe. We have laws because the software is incapable of handling the modern social dilemmas of one-off interactions.

    So stop acting like Cro-Magnons.

    Start acting like you have compassion. Because through such acting, your software will start actually having compassion.
    :)


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    Cognitive Load

    August 21, 2009 in Personal / Relationships by Ezra S F | 2 comments

    My parents taught me as a child lying is harder than telling the truth. I am way too lazy to bother with anything other than using a tangent to change the subject. Simplicity also helps keep track of my life. I like understanding what is happening and why.

    Skills involved in deception also teach problem-solving, project management, and social context management. My favorite friends were the brilliant liars. They always had a new entertaining story.

    For a host of reasons, their theory goes, lying is more mentally taxing than telling the truth. Performing an extra task while lying or telling the truth should therefore affect the liars more. The Load of Lying: Testing for Truth

    As evidenced by Dunbar’s Number, our brains are wired for both determining honesty in others and being the cheat.


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    DDoS of Social Media

    August 8, 2009 in Interweb, Social, Social / IM / Chat by Ezra S F | 1 comment

    Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal and other sites all admitted to suffering from a DDoS attack. It seem to me the purpose of a Denial-of-Service attack (DoS) against a web site is to flood it with so much traffic the site becomes unusable. The DDoS is where multiple other computers are coordinated into launching the attack.

    All three of the above mentioned sites have had recent issues keeping up with growing usage. The USA inauguration and Iran demonstrations peaked traffic so much the sites seemed like they suffered from a DoS. Already at the edge, an attack tipped the barely making it social media sites over it. Some users abandon them for less popular (so more stable sites). Those who stick around suffer from learned helplessness.

    Causing all this hullabaloo over a single user seems odd to me. I don’t speak Russian, so I don’t know if this guy from Georgia (the country) deserved it. Also, it is almost the one year anniversary since Russia invaded Georgia. During the invasion, DDoS attacks disabled Georgian web sites. So, maybe this is to show Georgia the Russians are still capable of causing problems? This is why security evangelists want us to be able to deal with threats.

    Various computer viruses over the years have turned millions of computers into zombies for botnets. So… If you are upset about your favorite social media site getting taken down, then maybe you should act on ensuring your computer and others in your social network were not enlisted into a botnet?


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    Worldwide Photowalk Panorama

    July 21, 2009 in Photography, Social, from LiveJournal by Big Eazy | No comments


    Worldwide Photowalk Panorama, originally uploaded by Ezra F.

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    Scott Kelby’s Angels

    July 21, 2009 in Photography, Social, from LiveJournal by Big Eazy | No comments


    Scott Kelby’s Angels, originally uploaded by Ezra F.

    Photowalks are fun. Photographers are phunny.


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    Writer’s Block: Call Me

    June 2, 2009 in Personal / Relationships, from LiveJournal by Big Eazy | 1 comment

    I do have a landline at home. However, if Google Voice ever opens up to new customers, then I will switch to that. I’d much prefer the get text transcripts of messages than have to listen to the calls.


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    Losing My Mind

    April 21, 2009 in Personal / Relationships by Ezra S F | 2 comments

    CPR/AED training requires time on the floor rescuing dummies. Objects in pockets, like my Digital Elph, interfere with rescuing dummies. Digital cameras on desks without supervision have a tendency to disappear. (Not so much from coworkers kleptomania but from my distractions.) So I put it in my work backpack. 

    Today is the First Day of Ridvan. So earlyish this morning I went down to the Botanical Garden since I wasn’t going to be at work and didn’t go this past weekend. I spent ten minutes looking for the Elph in the work backpack. So I went and just shot with the Rebel. I chalked it up to having left the camera at work. After all, the last place I recalled seeing the thing was at work.

    I decided to look at what I took. So I looked for the card reader in the main part of the camera backpack. To my surprise, the Elph was right there in the wrong backpack. The only thing that makes sense is I moved the camera but forgot I did so. 

    Perhaps better brain food could help? Fish providing omega-3 fatty acids is already a healthy part of my diet. Maybe more eggs with choline with the vitamin B precursor could help?


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    Writer’s Block: Heart to Heart

    February 14, 2009 in Personal / Relationships, from LiveJournal by Big Eazy | No comments

    My beef with Valentine’s Day really has to do with not having a significant other. So it does a really good job of pointing out that I am indeed quite lonely. That doesn’t make me hate it. Instead it makes me frustrated… Mainly with myself.


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