The Ink-Pot and the Palette

Happy LJ-versary to me. On this date in 2004 I made my first bewildered post on LiveJournal. The online world has changed a lot since then, hasn't it?

Like, in 2004, LiveJournal was still owned by Brad Fitzpatrick, and I think they still had an office in Portland (I remember seeing it; I'm sure that's not my imagination. It was down by the river near the Broadway Bridge. I cannot find corroboration of this memory online). MySpace and Facebook were just getting started, and Tumblr wasn't quite yet a gleam in the eye of whoever founded Tumblr.

FastCompany wrote about a LiveJournal "comeback" last year, and got some good comments from current (presumably US-based) users saying that LJ's comeback plans have nothing in common with what the core US user base wants--to wit, the journal world as it has always been, with threaded comments, screening, privacy, security, adult content allowed, no advertising. In other words, Dreamwidth.

I'm six days/posts behind in my big September 30/30 plan. Whoops.

Gosh, it's the third of September, which makes me three entries behind in my putative Post and Read Every Day In September plan, which I told no one about and only vaguely hinted at to ravurian. I guess it will be make thirty posts in September, a slightly different commitment.

So, thing the first: Google+ Hangouts. Really cool. My sisters and I have been using Hangouts for a few weeks now. We all live in the same town, but getting together in person is a big production number. We're working on manifesting improvements in our lives (me: remodeling), and we like to meet to share our progress. Hangouts work perfectly.

What I like:

• The interface is reasonably intuitive
• It's free
• It easily accommodates several people and switches focus seamlessly to whoever's talking
• The sound quality is good, and the system eliminates cross-talk and echoes amazingly well
• You can start a Hangout on your phone, then switch to your tablet or computer, also seamlessly

What I don't like:

• It's a wee bit glitchy and isn't 100% reliable on all devices and operating systems (yet).
• It's a bit of a shock seeing myself as if on live TV. But I'm getting used to that. I'm figuring out makeup, lighting and angle.

It would be really cool if the geniuses of technology could figure out one thing: how to make it so that when I'm looking at you on the screen, I look like I'm looking at you. As it is, I have to gaze interestedly into the tiny pinhole front-facing camera on my device in order to look like I'm listening to you--and then I miss the nuances of your expression. Someone get on that, please.

While I stand here listening to Coffitivity and more-or-less patiently waiting for the lieutenants of finance to finish closing the damn fiscal year already, I found an ancient approach to mental health, Anxious? Depressed? Try Greek Philosophy, by a guy named Jules Evans.

Jules admits to having wrecked his own mental health with drug use in the 90s. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, with its roots deep in Stocisim, was his road back.

I'm especially impressed by this statement (because I feel like I'm right at this very crossroads in my own mental health journey):

...after 10 years of practising philosophy, I wonder if it leaves something out, if it’s too rational, self-controlled and unemotional... this year I have started researching ecstatic experience, and how people can achieve euphoria through music, dancing, drugs or the passionate love of God. As a friend put it recently: 'Back on ecstasy, eh?'

He has a book, of course. Good advance reviews.

This is so cool! I'm standing here at my work desk and I feel like I'm across the street at my favorite downtown coffee shop.

It's Coffitiviy, "Ambient sounds to boost your workday creativity".

I've read in a bunch of places lately (most recently this Smithsonian article) that creativity is boosted by cities, by metaphorical friction among ideas, by noise. The ambient sound of a coffee-shop, studies are suggesting, is just right.

I'd like to spend creative time at cafés--and god knows I live in a place with plenty of them--but several limitations have made this impracticable: my laptop is just a hair too big to cart around, and there's no slimmer computer in my near future. Keyboard+tablet has yet to equal actual fast typing for me.

Also, my creativity-hours and my caffeine-hours don't usually overlap. Or when they do, I'm still in my jammies with crazy-hair.

But right this minute, with Coffitivity playing in my earphones, I'm feeling oddly looped in, yet not chafed, engaged but free-floating, comfortably alone in my head but surrounded by a sense of people. It's surprisingly pleasant!

Try it and let me know what you think.

If you have two and a half minutes to spare and would like an uplifting view of the world from fact-based reality, you could do worse than to watch Hans Rosling's The River of Myths.



(Sorry--no embed code)

Rosling's the guy who developed the dramatic animated data modeling software that remains one of the most popular presentations on TED. Using massive data sets from the United Nations, he demonstrates how in several important measures relating to child mortality and family size, the world is actually getting better.

This new video updates the data and improves on the presentation, and it's really cool.

My supervisor just told me that my annual performance evaluation is due in four days. We usually start sooner on this dreaded, tedious task because it takes hours, but today I finished it in ten minutes.

( I should have been this relaxed about it 25 years ago. )

The trouble with the Daily Posting commitment is that...well, there are bound to be some posts of virtually no substance.

Ahem! First of all, I bought one of these off NoMoreRack a couple of weeks ago.



It was on my desk just like that a couple of days ago. Norm walked up and after observing it, asked--very hesitatingly--"Um...what is that?"

LOL. I resisted the obvious crack and said, "It's a USB flash charger." Which it is. Very handy little device. You charge it, it charges your phone. Seems like it might save the day on a long flight.

Second of all, also in technology, my 83-year-old mom just got her first smartphone and is learning how to text. This is a major breakthrough for the I Heart Bell Telephone generation. Personally, I find text messages as heartwarming and welcome as letters in the mail used to be--and I hate talking on the phone; it will be interesting to see whether they make my mom feel more connected or less.

Third of all, as a follow up to the brain-cascade and migraine events of the past couple of weeks, it has taken several days, but I'm feeling "normal" again, whatever that is.

PS: NoMoreRack is the tumblr of bargain-shopping-porn. Don't go there unless you're feeling strong.

It's probably a coincidence, but following Friday's migraine-aura-neurotransmitter-cascade-hangover-hormonally-induced-brainstorm*, my brain shifted gears.



( This is only sort of a knitting post. I think it's about creativity. )

I'd like to introduce people to The Mental Illness Happy Hour. A wonderful person on my LJ flist pointed me to it the other day (you know who you are! Thank you again) and I'm paying the favor forward.

( The Mental Illness Happy Hour )

It's good stuff.

In his article Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere, Duke University sociologist Kieran Healy takes a time machine back to 1776 to show how powerful the collection of impersonal data can be.

( Listen, my children, and you shall hear... )