“Stupidism of the day: Today was bike to work day. Bike's broken, so I ran. But didn't want backpack, so no change of clothes. Stupid!!!”
yesterday at 10:17 am
Don't sit next to Adam today, he's going to smell... - John Honeck
John, I think you've misunderstood the core benefit here: Fewer meetings. "Adam, just dropped by to maybe chat a few minutes about... err... ugh... um... gotta go." - Adam Lasnik
“Today I received dozens of birthday wishes (yay!). What was surprising to me was that the vast majority of them were on Facebook. Nearly 100% of my friends have my personal e-mail address, but I guess the in-facebook bday reminder is just that powerful.”
Monday at 4:38 pm
... and despite me now being 37 (eep!), the majority of my friends are on Facebook, which is also surprising to me. - Adam Lasnik
I had the same experience as you with my birthday yesterday (May 11). Happy birthday, fellow May baby :) - Jennie Lin
Yep, Facebook does a great job of 'reminding' you of upcoming birthdays. Wonder if they can leverage that? (I usually send one) Happy Birthday Adam! - Charlie Anzman
Happy Birthday, Adam!! Have a great onee - John Mueller
Hey everyone, you all rock! It was a great birthday... thanks to friendfeed, facebook, and -- most of all -- you and my other friends :) Thanks for the friendly birthday wishes :-) - Adam Lasnik
Why do I feel the need to wish you birthday merriment again? This time via a more public forum. Friendfeed peer pressure! Happy birthday. - Patricia Hanrahan
“Pretty impressed with www.digsby.com -- nice IM / Twitter / social network aggregator. But revenue stream? Hmm.”
May 10 at 1:33 am
Have others of you tried Digsby? Thoughts? (and no, it doesn't offer FF support, but that's okay; I have tried FF apps and I really prefer the web experience for FF so far) - Adam Lasnik
Tried it and gave it up after a couple of days. The interface is nice but I may be done completely with desktop applications. I'm finding I prefer my aggregation directly in the browser. And yeah, I still read FF at the home page too: no service has captured that accurately yet! - Carla Thompson
Digsby stores your account passwords on their servers and they don't seem interested in creating an opt out for that "feature". Thats a dealbreaker for me. - Erica Baker
Ack. And while the correlation isn't certain, having Digby open seems to eventually slow my Firefox b3 to a crawl (oddly IE7 still runs just fine). - Adam Lasnik
i like it. i like being able to see who's logged in at all times and seeing real-time updates on my screen. however i wouldnt' rely on it for chat--i've seen messages dropped - Huy Zing
My friend Greg says it's mathematically illogical to vote in an election such as the American presidential election. My heart says he's completely wrong, but it's hard to refute his point logically. What do you think? - Adam Lasnik
This question has been considered for quite a long time. http://wikisum.com/w/Geys:_'Ra... seems to be a pretty good summary of a fairly comprehensive survey paper on the subject. - ⓞnor
Ah, interesting stuff (and thanks!), but alas, not much in the way of ammunition for convincing Greg to vote ;) - Adam Lasnik
I don't get it, how is this argument (the main one with all the math) not obviously bullshit? I mean, gosh a 1 in 13 million chance of turning the election! What do you expect, there are 10s of millions of other people voting in your state. But what's really lame is his "philosophical" alternative: "There is a philosophical approach to this as well that involves no math and is much shorter. Lets say that my vote is the deciding vote. If this were true, I sure as hell don't want to be that guy. What if I'm wrong? I am not going to spend the due diligence required to select the next leader of the free world." - j1m
Most academics in political science seem to agree that Greg's basically right: even if you're driven by total altruism, you would do much better spending your 20 minutes picking up litter in the street than going to a polling place. Of all the arguments presented in the papers summarized on wikisum (which seems like a really awesome site, btw), the most interesting to me are those which point out that the marginal analysis may not be the most ethically valuable in a cooperative situation. - ⓞnor
So you figure the difference between a couple of presidents is basically the equivalent of spending a million man-hours/year picking up litter, i.e. the President has about as much effect as 500 garbage men? I shouldn't have to be sitting here telling you that this is moronic, but I am. - j1m
This may reduce to two rather separate questions: one is appropriate ethical behavior in a situation where everyone benefits if most people pay, but individuals can ride free on the group with little marginal cost. (For example, global warming: either the world at large will or will not get carbon emissions under control, but either way it doesn't matter much what *I* do.) The other is why people are so "altruistic" about voting (much more than they are about, say, littering). - ⓞnor
No no, this is not about being altruistic. Voting is an exercise of power. - j1m
So, that's the route I would take to convince your friend: Yes, on a marginal basis it doesn't matter if he votes or doesn't; but, generally speaking, greater turnout is valuable, because if you leave the election to people who either *do* have a rational reason to vote (they are being paid off) or who are in the habit of acting irrationally, the outcome is likely to be worse. Then you can leave it to him to ponder the question of how to convince himself to do the right thing. - ⓞnor
j1m: For the individual, voting in a Presidential election exercises basically no power, as measured in any of the ways we normally measure power or influence. - ⓞnor
It is what it is, it's 1 vote. Why do you think this somehow gets converted into nothing? Nothing would be zero votes. - j1m
As to the discussion on wikisum, things that are likely to be big holes pop up left and right. In 'rational' models, political power is being compared to extra free time on a Tuesday morning. That political power can't be gotten in many other ways, it's not fully fungible. Since this is an apples-to-oranges comparison, it's not clear how a rational model applies. - j1m
Voters probably get various payoffs for voting, and whatever studies have been done are unlikely to have more than scratched the surface of the problem of measuring them. Behavioral economics is a nascent science, not a complete one -- nor, for that matter, is political science complete. - j1m
j1m, something tells me you plan to vote ;-). Anyway, j1m, @nor, thank you for the debate. My argument to my friend is this... essentially a variation on the tragedy of the commons. If one person abstains from voting, it's no big deal, but if the majority of people abstain, we'll end up with a fundmentally anti-democratic (and likely *more* harmful*) gov't / system of gov't replacing our curent one, and thus it is both a moral and symbolic obligation for each person to support this exercise democracy. - Adam Lasnik
If the founders of this country relied on cool analysis of mathematical probabilities, this country and its government would never have been possible. If abolitionists and suffragists weighed the math of their actions, the probabilities of affecting an election as a white male would be much higher. Is that a scenario in which Greg would be willing to vote? - Shellee OBrien
I don't like that argument one bit. "We need to be irrational, because if people were rational, nothing good ever would have gotten done! So stop thinking so much already!" No, no, no. That confuses rational analysis with risk-averse self-interest. You can perfectly well be a high-risk-high-return altruist with big audacious goals, but you still want to be *sensible* about it. - ⓞnor
Wait, @nor, my position is that this isn't a zero-sum argument. There's much more at stake and much more to consider than the math. My position is one that argues for more thinking, not less. ;^) - Shellee OBrien
Math is a way to think sensibly about whatever you care about. Even if you care deeply about grand nation-changing ideals, even if you value those far beyond yourself, an individual vote just doesn't do very much to accomplish that. (Which may be one reason the founders of this country, and the abolitionists and the suffragists, did way more than just cast their individual votes.) - ⓞnor
Except none of this matters here, since the math appears to be misapplied, at least to me. But yes, one can, and should, do much more than vote. - j1m
And now, ladies and gentlemen, part 2! http://gregable.com/2008/05/pr... Plus... Greg has personally assured me that if he gets fifty (50) comments here, he'll vote. Or join Friendfeed. Or neither. :D - Adam Lasnik
Off topic (sort of) but this has all reminded me of my favourite piece of graffiti - http://jimmysweblog.net/2004/1... (this was after the 2004 election in Australia when Howard was voted back in as PM). By-the-by voting in Oz is compulsory, have had many an argument with my mother over that one. - Patricia Hanrahan
50 comments on his blog, or here on FriendFeed? So, um... who would he vote for? - ⓞnor
Not sure / Hopefully the right person! - Adam Lasnik
It's amusing that he set up his own little mini threshold commons for us... - ⓞnor
Okay, I need to come clean quickly on this one. The "50 comments" thing was a (possibly lame) way of me to publicly tweak Greg. He didn't promise that. But he should have :D - Adam Lasnik
Did you know that German-speaking musicians don't have a b-flat? This confused me endlessly when I first took lessons here. B-flat is just "B", the normal "B" is "H". To top it off, they dropped sharps and flats and called them "is" (for sharp) or "es" (for flat). So a D-sharp is "Dis", a D-flat is "Des". Dis is very confusing. (added: wikipedia says it's true: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K... ) - John Mueller
Wacky peeps! (and how did Brahms manage?!) - Adam Lasnik
posted a message
“Let's say you wanna share a great web page. What service(s) do you use now and why? (e.g., friendfeed, stumbleupon, delicious, reader, etc.)”
May 6 at 12:48 pm
I am personally really torn. I like the community of stumbleupon, the immediacy of ff, the newness and handiness of reader, etc. On one hand, adding it to all is tempting, but that's time-consuming and bound to create hellishly annoying dupes. - Adam Lasnik
Speaking from the perspective of having a blog, 80% all the traffic from services like Stumble Upon bounces and from what I gather that's just the way it is. So from that perspective I view SU as a click-happy community that doesn't really like to focus on anything! That said, I can't believe nobody has built the application that easily allows you to share something on whatever services you want whether, SU, Digg, Delicious, reader or whatever --with just one click. Maybe FriendFeed will do it... - Robert Seidman
If it's a webpage, I del.icio.us it (because I import that feed on my website so it shows up everywhere). Actually, if it's really a great web page, chances are someone else will already have shared it so you can just "me too" it :P - John Mueller
Hmm... not yet sure about this Google Reader Notes thing. Excited on one hand, but also agreeing with what others have noted about contributing to a confusion of Google services (Notebook, Reader, Sites, etc.) - Adam Lasnik
Is there any swing dancing in this movie? The video player is really annoying and doesn't let you skip ahead. - Thai Tran
awesome - I saw the preview a while ago and wondered when, if ever, I would get a chance to see it - David Vasileff
No swing dancing in the movie, but we lindy bombed the cinema back in 2005 when the end of the movie is near. We even dressed like those swing girls! Memories memories... http://www.flickr.com/photos/s... - BeeLing Poh
thanks again for the link. watched this yesterday. what a fun movie. - David Vasileff
Glad you enjoyed the movie, David, and Bee, thanks for sharing those fun pics again! Wish I could have been there! :-) - Adam Lasnik
Thanks for the link - watching it now and smiling away! - Patricia Hanrahan
Ton of fun! Great way to discover music and embed clips and playlists for friends to appreciate. This is so useful and exciting that I'm sure the music industry will squash seeqpod like a bug pretty soon. Can't have innovation and sharing, you know! - Adam Lasnik
I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats! Someone *finally* leaked an insider's view of exactly what happens when you search for something on Google! - Adam Lasnik
The guy forgot to put a big marker in front of the pizza place. - Thai Tran
"Oh boy! I ate here recently, and it sure made me happy! I went to college near Chicago, so I know stuffed pizza... and Patxi's does it proud :) Thick tomato sauce, gooey cheese, and a hefty, tasty…" - Adam Lasnik
I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats! Someone *finally* leaked an insider's view of exactly what happens when you search for something on Google! - Adam Lasnik
This site lets you customize your laptop cover with a custom sticker... personal photo or one of their designs. Never realized how cool this was 'til I saw a friend's laptop with this, now I love my Schticker. Downside: kinda pricey. But worth it! :-) - Adam Lasnik
Ton of fun! Great way to discover music and embed clips and playlists for friends to appreciate. This is so useful and exciting that I'm sure the music industry will squash seeqpod like a bug pretty soon. Can't have innovation and sharing, you know! - Adam Lasnik
This site lets you customize your laptop cover with a custom sticker... personal photo or one of their designs. Never realized how cool this was 'til I saw a friend's laptop with this, now I love my Schticker. Downside: kinda pricey. But worth it! :-) - Adam Lasnik
It's not so much your life is about the change as your life is about to be hijacked... - Chris Reed
You should have setup alerts for Wii at Amazon on wiialerts.com. Via the wiialerts, I only paid the Amazon retail price $249.99. - Atul Arora
Oh, this is hilarious. Right before I met the seller with a check, I e-mailed my roomie saying "Our living room is about to become more fun... I am buying a wii!" and she wrote back, thankfully promptly, basically... we already have one! (she just never set it up). Go figure! - Adam Lasnik
Adam: Wait, she had a Wii in a box but never set it up? What, it's been sitting under the couch for the past few months? Fancy coaster? :) - Jennie Lin
Jennie, you're as confused as I am at this point! - Adam Lasnik
Ah, neato... thanks, Nathan! I've also been looking through the sample person-profile on the 23andme site (requires registration, da bastards!), and from that I have to say I'm not particularly impressed re: quantity of actionable stuff. - Adam Lasnik
I feel bad about this because I'm guessing that most twitterers see twitter as mostly about a community, a conversation. I see it, perhaps somewhat obnoxiously, as a broadcast tool and am annoyed when I'm subjected to others' conversations that mean nothing to me (e.g., "right on, @someRandomPerson!"). I fear *my* envisionment of what twitter is / should be is rudely different than the conception the majority holds. - Adam Lasnik
But the wonderful thing about online social tools is that you don't have to care what the global majority thinks. You only have to take into consideration what the majority of the people in _your_ segment of the social graph thinks. - Adewale Oshineye
Be nice if you could set twitter to receive @ posts only if you also follow the recipient. (Or do I misunderstand the model? I don't use twitter much.) - ⓞnor
Good point, Adewale. One could have a fatalistic view on follower self-selection, I suppose :-). And @nor, unfortunately that'd kinda defeat the purpose of @'ing. It's a way to contribute to talk back to someone (including folks who are popular online, like Danny Sullivan or Robert Scoble) and have them be able to read your feedback. That's in contrast with the twitter "D" which is a direct message that can only be sent to someone who follows you. Prob is, unlike Friendfeed, tweets aren't threaded. - Adam Lasnik
No, I meant, only receive @ posts targeted at *other* people if you're following the *target* (as well as the sender). Of course you would receive everything targeted to you. - ⓞnor
Ohhhh... thanks for the clarification. - Adam Lasnik
“When I ponder the zillions of hours I've spent tinkering w/ XHTML/CSS/CGI instead of creating more content, I'm both amazed & saddened.”
April 29 at 1:29 am
I wish I could remember the original link I saw recently that inspired me to think about this, but... though I do have a bit of gnawing discomfort about increasingly hosting everything Me on sites I don't control, I'm increasingly realizing that the less time I worry about scripts, templates, XHTML, etc., the more time I have for actually writing, posting photos, expressing myself, and engaging with others online and offline. Is building a brand (mydomain.com) really worth all the extra stress and time? I used to think it was, but now I seriously doubt it. Yes, decentralization can suck, but spending ages building an island that few visit is even worse, IMHO. - Adam Lasnik
I think it was "The Vanishing Personal Site" on Zeldman.com. You seem to have smart friends. :) - Erik Dafforn
Adam, you should consider changing your title to Online Philosopher. Keep it coming, good stuff. - John Honeck
Erik, thanks for the reminder! I did a quick skim through my ff stuff but somehow missed that. And John, thank you for the kind comment... really made my morning :-). - Adam Lasnik
Very thoughtful and spot-on musings on why so many of us have essentially outsourced our "personal sites"... and what it means for online communication and ownership. [Hat tip: Steven Hodson, http://friendfeed.com/stevenho...] - Adam Lasnik
Very thoughtful and spot-on musings on why so many of us have essentially outsourced our "personal sites"... and what it means for online communication and ownership. - Adam Lasnik
