Disqus - Latest Comments for chrisbaskind

Re: New Study Reports the Obvious: Airport Security Theater Doesn’t Make Us Safer

chrisbaskind — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:49:48 -0000

I'm sure Israel is a lovely place, but I'd rather not live in an armed camp. Good luck with that.

Re: 5 Decluttering Projects You Can Finish in Under 5 Hours

chrisbaskind — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:17:04 -0000

I know better than to even suggest displacing cats. It's warm, it's high, and they can bat you on the head as you go past. Perfect.

Re: Minimalism Is More Than Less

chrisbaskind — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:41:25 -0000

True, but the Byrds/Dylan lyrics aren't verbatim. I was quoting the song,
rather than Ecclesiastes.

Re: 5 Decluttering Projects You Can Finish in Under 5 Hours

chrisbaskind — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:48:44 -0000

I've followed Nomad Needles for a while, and now it's on our Recommended page. :-)

Re: Thanks, but No Thanks, Chevy

chrisbaskind — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:28:16 -0000

There are bicycle activists who -- in good faith -- oppose bike lanes as a kind of "segregation." I'm not one of them. People ride bicycles when they feel safe doing so. Even the Europeans, who are decades ahead of us on shifting traffic from four to two wheels, know that you *must* create facility for bike transport if you expect people to ride.

We have very little bicycle infrastructure in my county. I am aware of only one local company which makes any provision for secure bicycle parking (ironically, it's Gulf Power -- which runs a coal-fired power plant here). Some major routes have bike lanes, but the markings are inconsistent, and the lanes seem to disappear in exactly the places they're most needed.

Lots of work to do. And please consider More Minimal a safe place to rant. ;-)

Re: Thanks, but No Thanks, Chevy

chrisbaskind — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:59:50 -0000

Since June, I've *needed* a car three times. Twice, I bummed rides. Once, I just let things fall down. Neither was a great option, but there's very little public transit here.

Next up: the Holidays. I'm guessing I'll have to rent a car at some point to see way-out-of-town family. Even at holiday rates, that's a much better deal than even a single month of car ownership.

The Equinox looks nice. It's reasonably efficient for a gas-burner -- though not as efficient as pedaling. ;-)

Re: Newsome.Org

chrisbaskind — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:35:16 -0000

There is no more inhumane way to discover, sort, and analyze information than Twitter -- unless, of course, all you are interested in is what's new, hot, and of dubious quality.

And that's coming from someone who likes Twitter (though I admit it's tested me in the past). If you don't want to see those unread item counts (and I couldn't agree more with Robert on this issue), get a script and suppress them. Or try a low-clutter, low-noise RSS client such as Fever.

Either case will be easier than assembling a Byzantine array of lists and *still* having to mentally filter all the lunch menus, non sequiturs, and Mafia Wars nonsense. Gimme search and the more humane layout found in virtually all RSS readers. Better yet, bring on intelligent agents to learn what I like and start doing this stuff for me.

Re: The New, New, New Facebook: Hundreds of Thousands Organize in Protest

chrisbaskind — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:05:42 -0000

I'm not a heavy Facebook user, but I like the changes. The page is cleaner and more useful. You can see the influence of the former Friendfeed engineers.

I do think they should have called the "news feed" what it was tagged on FF, though: Best of Day. Makes its purpose clearer, and that's why it probably seems that items are 24 hours old.

Re: Not All Roads Lead to Rome

chrisbaskind — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:06:55 -0000

Hey, nice Slideshare presentation!

Re: The biggest difference between Twitter and Facebook

chrisbaskind — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:36:21 -0000

The best way to "improve productivity" is to turn Facebook and Twitter off now and then. ;-)

Re: What Glenn Beck Can Teach Us About Consumerism

chrisbaskind — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:38:15 -0000

It's hard to tell where he wanted to go with that. Away from us, I hope. ;-)

Re: Google Wave’s unproductive email metaphors

chrisbaskind — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 18:31:35 -0000

> Because your eye gets drawn to anything that moves on screen. This is a HUGE attention distractor.

I agree, Robert -- which is why Friendfeed in realtime mode could never replace a real RSS aggregator for me.

Re: Ford Fiesta Movement: Can Social Media Sell Cars?

chrisbaskind — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 23:40:28 -0000

And that's a good answer, Scott. Thank you.

Re: Ford Fiesta Movement: Can Social Media Sell Cars?

chrisbaskind — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:16:23 -0000

Effective or not, this is a sales campaign -- not a movement.

And this is not an accusation, but was this article a placement? I see the disclaimer, but does that imply a quid pro quo agreement of any kind which resulted in this article being published? Was Ford guaranteed coverage of their Fiesta "movement" in exchange for their sponsorship of the Summer of Social Good campaign?

If not, here's a great opportunity to assure us we've not just been propagandized.

Re: Serious conversations? Not on Twitter

chrisbaskind — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:23:00 -0000

I feel ripped-off and want my money back.

Re: Google Force Feeds Social Media On The World

chrisbaskind — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:03:46 -0000

> So if you’re considering a lawsuit, I’m afraid you don’t have much chance to fight it.

Ah: since we have you, we don't need a court system. ;-)

That there's no physical copying (one assumes) doesn't mean SideWiki isn't a derivative work. We'll just have to see. This *will* go to court. And while Google is huge, they're not magical. They'll have to answer to the same legal principles as the rest if us.

I don't have an axe to grind with Google, but SidiWiki will raise some new questions I think can only be settled in a courtroom.

FWIW, if this were an opt-in, I'd go for it. I'm not sure all copyright holders will agree, however.

Re: louisgray.com: I Don't Want To Hear About Distributed Conversations Any More

chrisbaskind — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:48:31 -0000

If Google cared enough to ask, I won't mind allowing people marking up my stuff with SideWiki. I've started releasing my work with under liberal CC license, and what people say about it is their business. But that's my call. It may not be the preference of others, and calling them names ("old guard," etc.) isn't helpful.

> ... any further efforts to try and force people to have these conversations in a single place should be extinguished

That's not the issue. You're right: we can't force discussion venue, nor should we try. But content creators *do* get to say who can reuse their work, and The Google is essentially republishing anything they please within a new web service (they'll argue that there is no technical copying, but SideWiki wouldn't exist without the source content).

I'm wondering if SideWiki is creating derivative works without permission. We'll see what the courts think, because that is where this is going.

Someone made the bizarre assertion today that SideWiki "Shifts Power To Consumers –Away From Corporate Websites." The last I checked, Google was a massive corporation. What SideWiki does is move the conversation to *their* corporate website. Let's not confuse SideWiki with actual altruism, or Google with Robin Hood.

This is also not equivalent to DISQUS and Echo, both of which are attached to sites by the publishers themselves.

Louis, you know I'm a fan. I don't particularly have it in for Google. But the issues surrounding SideWiki are not simple. They'll be decided by the judicial system, not commenters.

Re: FAIL OVERLOAD: Because You Can Never Have Enough Fail

chrisbaskind — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 22:40:14 -0000

The bicycle picture goes to show that one man's FAIL is another man's awesome (looks like the cyclist is pushing alongside, btw).

Re: CONGRATS: Mashable Marriage Proposal Live at #SocialGood [Video]

chrisbaskind — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:17:41 -0000

Nicely done. Many happy, healthy years, Adam and Sharon!

Re: Joe Hewitt on Bad Hair Day at 7PM (Scripting News)

chrisbaskind — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:29:47 -0000

For Joe Hewitt: We hear there's a "lite" Facebook interface coming. Does it incorporate any of the new iPhone app's appearance?

Re: My Thoughts on Posterous as a Lifestreaming Platform

chrisbaskind — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:48:58 -0000

Oh, I dunno. Postereous could easily replace Friendfeed as it is currently used by most of the people I follow. That's as a discussion board -- not an aggregator.

FF moved from emphasizing lifestreaming to "conversation" as soon as it went with realtime. Most links I see in my stream are shared directly or are topics original to FF. Postereous can certainly handle that, particularly if it improves the robustness of its comment system or allows users to move to Echo or DISQUS.

Re: We don’t need less options, we need less decisions.

chrisbaskind — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:40:48 -0000

You don't hear 20 year old talking about broken filters because they over-consume information in the same way they over-consume everything else. Behold youth. ;-)

Re: louisgray.com: ReTweet.com's Rip-off Of TweetMeme Is Embarrassing and Wrong

chrisbaskind — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 08:49:25 -0000

ReTweet's launch marketing seemed targeted at tapping some seething pool of user resentment regarding Tweetmeme. It's just not there, and "Me, too!" isn't a winning strategy.

Re: ReTweet.com to Launch at Noon, Declares War on Tweetmeme

chrisbaskind — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:13:02 -0000

Why do we care about this titanic battle? More crap on top of the hype pile.

Re: Free Heat From An Old Window And Some Soda Cans.

chrisbaskind — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:47:54 -0000

OK: An excuse to drink a few more sodas. :-)