Mudita

My fiancee is a marathon runner. I've hardly ever run in my life. I've been training in the past few weeks to improve my endurance. I'm not a competitive person, but I'm still afraid I'll be taking a hit to my self-esteem when I go run with her this week. In that light, I went out on the web looking for a good meditation to prepare myself, and I found one on "mudita."

In buddhist philosophy, mudita is the third of the four brahmaviharas, the inner "divine abodes" of lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity that are every human being's true nature. The term mudita is often narrowly translated as "sympathetic" or "altruistic" joy, the pleasure that comes when we delight in other people's well-being rather than begrudge it. But since in practice, it's all but impossible to experience happiness for others unless we first develop the capacity to taste it in our own lives, many Buddhist teachers interpret mudita more broadly as referring to the inner fountain of infinite joy that is available to each of us at all times, regardless of our circumstances. The more deeply we drink from this fountain, the more secure we become in our own abundant happiness, and the easier it then becomes for us to relish the joy of other people as well.

I love yoga and every bit of the philosophy that I've learned. I wish I knew where to find a more spiritually-based yoga center in downtown Boston. E-mail me if you know of one - so far I've mainly gotten into Iyengar Yoga at Beacon Hill Athletic Clubs.

Reading blogs.

Today, I did the unthinkable. Those of you who know how obsessed I've been will probably be surprised, and maybe proud... I threw out all of the unread blog posts from last week (~1000), and resolved to not read anything older than 1 day. It's recreational, and it ought to feel that way to me. Whew. I'm still kind of in shock, and trying to just let it slip by without concern, but it sure is hard to just let it go.
I've also done laundry, went hill sprinting on my own (30!), and am getting ready to go home for Christmas' Eve. All in all, it's been a productive, fun day. Happy Holidays!

Connectivism

I recently read an article on a learning theory called "Connectivism." Its thesis is basically that "learning" needs to encompass the networks of technology and people to which the learner has access. Instead of only knowing what's immediately in his head, he "knows" whatever concepts he can find in his network. While I don't necessarily agree with the idea that everything in a person's network is really "known" to him, I do think that it points to a very valuable idea given the liklihood that children today will have several career changes in their lifetimes. I'll hazard a guess that the vast majority of problems that need solving in business these days are solved by people who need to research a solution before they can offer one. Perhaps there should be some better education about how to research, how to network, and how to organize yourself. I think that that would certainly better prepare children for working in the American economy. Whether not that's a good thing is still up for debate.

Embracing the New

This story by Benjamin Rosenbaum is fantastic. In it, we learn of a race of furry creatures whose memories are kept by the symbiotic Ghennungs that live in their fur. Their memories can be taken and given back on a whim, passed from one to another, from father to child, master to apprentice. The Ghennungs would battle one another for mastery of the body, but each body takes on a God to keep them all at peace. I find this image truly fascinating, especially today. We are generating information at an unprecedented rate. In many ways I feel like a tunnel for information, passing things through but never really keeping ahold of much of what I process. Imagine being able to completely forget your entire life for a second, or to experience someone else's life in its entirety. I find the idea exhilarating.

From Pull to Push

Traditionally we have lived in a world that is much more 'pull' than 'push.' By that, I mean that when we have the time and energy to go rent a movie, buy a video game, or read some news, we go and do so. Now we have services that work in the opposite manner; we pick some things we are interested in (movies to watch, games to play, and types of news to read), and, as they are available, each item is pushed to us. This new model provides an advantage in that users are capable of being exposed to much more than they would otherwise, but it also neglects the user's own capacity at any given period in time.
Personally, I am a member of Netflix, Gamefly, and Bloglines. As a consequence of this "pushing," I began feeling like my recreation was work I had to get done! What's worse, the more you do, the more you have to do, and there's virtually no trail of breadcrumbs to recognize how much you've accomplished. I'm learning to just 'let it go,' but even that feels pretty hard to do. Has anyone else had this experience? What are some possible solutions?

Getting Things Done

I'm going to contrast this with David Allen's book Getting Things Done. I mean, rather than discussing how to get things done, I'd like to discuss the psychological satisfaction that comes from doing tangible, measurable things. A person can do a lot without ever really knowing just how much he's accomplished. I think that:
- reading a book is more satisfying than reading a book on the computer
- entertaining friends is more satisfying than being entertained
- making something is more satisfying than buying it
- going to the gym is more rewarding when you keep a progress journal

Why is it that human beings have difficulty seeing their own progress? On a computer, what would be a good way to make progress more tangible and rewarding in that way?

Projects

Have you ever given thought to what projects you might do? Last week, my roommate convinced me that I need to do some more things that have tangible, real-world results. When he said that, it hit home - hard. I've offered to volunteer, tutoring middle school students in math and science. I'm helping another friend do trail work for the Sudbury Valley Trustees. I'm thinking of trying my hand at some art work at home. At work, I've spoken to my boss about getting a change of pace and a new machine. I thought about trying some home computer or electronics projects and surprised myself by having a pretty negative gut reaction to doing that kind of recreation. Perhaps I'm afraid that those things are simply too ephemeral? I guess that, from this perspective, I see three categories of projects -

- projects that involve helping others, where the end result is a connection to that person
- projects in which you create something more or less permanent, like an art project
- projects in which the benefit is some change in yourself more than the object you have created

All my life I have been obsessed with projects of the third kind. I see home computer and electronics projects as being more or less of that kind. Perhaps that is why I feel this way.
Am I missing anything?

How to Search the Web

Think you know how to search? Sure, you can throw a word or two at Google easy and see what it spits back. But, if you're looking for something specific, all too often it can be frustrating and damn-near-impossible to get the information you're looking for.
When I go looking for something, Google is generally my first resource. I'll try using a couple of words together and see what comes back right away. Google can also offer search suggestions as you type from their beta Google completion service. If the basic search fails to come back with good resources, I might use some Google tricks to restrict and customize my results.
When I find a useful page, I use Alexa's web search to find related web sites with ratings and reviews. Generally, those results are more useful than Google's "related:" search. Next, I might go to http://del.icio.us/url?url=[:the web site you are looking up:], which will show me other users that have bookmarked the page. I can use their tags to poke around del.icio.us and see what other, similar pages they have bookmarked.
If I'm looking for specific types of things, I may take another tack altogether.
- for images, I'd look at flickr.
- to buy things, I'd use Froogle or Amazon.
- for movies, I use the Internet Movie Database.
- for research, I'd try the new Google Scholar.
- for news, I'd search Google News or Blogdigger.
- for source code, Koders
- for music, Musicplasma to find artists that are similar to ones I like (and it has a neat interface!)
- for video clips, I'd use BlogTelevision to search the blogosphere for *all* sorts of clips, heh

Am I missing any? Drop me a message.

Chile's "Las Ultimas Noticias"

This newspaper has a different business model. They publish online a day early, and then when they prepare the print edition they decide how to put together the paper according to how many clicks each article got in the online edition. This is a stark contrast to how many American newspapers use the web. The New York Times and many other papers publish their articles online, but expect users to complete a free registration and log in in order to view the articles. This has the unfortunate effect of preventing the newspaper from showing up in any search engines. The LA Times is ditching its national print edition, citing competition from online news sources as being more competitive. You can still find many users that do not like reading on a computer screen with good reason. However, this demonstrates that there is a significant portion of us who do not mind.
Why haven't American newspapers experimented with new ways of using the 'net?
One could argue that Chile's "Las Ultimas Noticias" experiment will simply create an even more sensationalist paper than traditional methods. Is that the case? Is that a problem?

Things I did this weekend -

1. Celebrated Hannuka with the family.
2. Watched "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," an 80's high school movie which popularized the word "dude" and is fun and interesting to watch. I'm not sure I caught all of the pop culture references, since the movie came out in 1981 and I was just one year old.
3. Went to Harvard's Berkman Center's "Votes, Bits, & Bytes" blogging and politics conference for a few hours. It was really cool to see some of the bloggers I read and read about regularly in person. Throughout the place, the air was abuzz with wild, fascinating conversation. Walking around, you could hear people talking about science and technology, politics, world events...you name it. There were voices from all over the world and from all types of interests.
However, in each of the large discussions I went to, I felt a bit put-out by the extremely techno-utopian bent of the discussions. With a sort of religious fervor, the bloggers discussed how to have a greater effect on the real world with our internet successes, viral messages in the blogging world, and creating a bloggers' support group in which we all agree to help each other however we can. The problem I see in that last point is a lack of focus - since we have divergent interests and projects, we ought to seek others who share our individual interests instead of trying to create a broad, bloggers' group.
4. Attended an awesome Christmas house party in which our hostess went to the trouble of making an elaborate and well decorated drink menu, and had plenty of excellent food and conversation. We played truth or dare Jenga (what ever happened to innocent, original Jenga?) and I had to answer my most embarassing moment...but I'll leave that off of here. tee-hee.
5. There was a Christmas Parade in the North End on Sunday, with the Wilmington High School band playing "Hot Hot Hot," horse-drawn carriages, old-style automobiles, mascots of all kinds, free candy, and Santa in a fire truck. The kids there were so happy - it must be magical to experience that as a child.
6. Ocean's 12 with some buds at the Boston Common Loews. I probably would have had a better grip of it if I'd seen Ocean's 11.
7. Played "X-Men: Legends" with many of the same friends. The game is really cool - the gameplay kind of reminds me of Gauntlet, but it has a great story. One of my favorite games of all time was Secret of Mana, which similarly had a great story and leveling scheme and was a multi-player adventure game. This genre seriously needs to get some more titles - do you know any good ones?
8. Went to sleep. That was refreshing.
9. Woke up at 6:45 to run up and down a hill 25 times with my roommate. That...was not fun. But I feel good now. Not like expunging the contents of my stomach onto the keyboard. Yeah.

Why do we blog?

Here is an excellent set of comments on why people blog. Up to this moment, I have blogged for much the same reasons that I keep a journal. I do it to keep some notes on my own thoughts, and because sometimes I simply can't help but say *something*. For the future, I hope to communicate to my friends, family, and whoever else cares what is going on in my mind and in my life.
Today, a co-worker of mine told me that he's thinking of running for a political office. It came as a shock to hear it from him, but then upon reflection I think it makes perfect sense. Thinking of him as a politician re-frames my image of him as something entirely new. I'm often amazed at the drastic changes a simple label can make.
This morning, I played the first level of the latest Ratchet and Clank: "Up Your Arsenal." The guys developing at Insomniac have really got a gem in this series. It's got a good story, great gameplay, and is funny as hell. Also, this new one can be played multi-player at home or on the 'net, so if anyone wants to come and check it out just let me know.
Tomorrow, I'll be heading to Votes, Bits & Bytes at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. This conference is pretty much guaranteed to be bursting with insight, and I'm really looking forward to connecting with some of the bloggers I read. I'll be attending "Updating the Rules for Radicals," the "CAIRNS Project" (which sounds like some kind of collaboration software that could be worth getting into), "Building An Online Campaign: A Case Study on After-School Education," "Now What?," and "Manifesto for a Better Global Conversation" with a blogger that I read daily, Joi Ito. Hope to see you there!

Challenge #2 - Write to your Audience

I'm playing with some ideas now and want to know what you think. First is the concept of a role model. Growing up, I never really felt that way about anybody. What purpose does having role models serve, and who were your personal role models? Answer that question for yourself before reading any further, and I'll give my response later in this post.
The second idea I'm messing around with may be called something else elsewhere, but for my purposes I will call it "active intelligence." The gist of this idea is what happens when a person takes personal responsibility for researching and developing an idea or set of ideas. When I was a student, I learned concepts by rote and recorded them in memory in the hopes that the concepts would be applicable in my later life. As a blogger, the things I learn become an obsession. First one idea leads me to research, and then to finding connected ideas. Ultimately, I
invent something that is at least entirely my own, if not entirely new to the world. Personally, I find that experience incredibly rewarding, and would like to share some piece of it with every human being on this earth. I'm not certain that everyone would agree with that sentiment, but for those who do, how can you teach someone to engage themselves in active intelligence? (and is there some other word to describe it?)
With regards to role models, I think that a good role model is someone that inspires you but does not overwhelm you with his or her achievements. He should remind you of what you yourself are capable. I think role models are incredibly helpful to human beings, but that all too often we are only reminded of those model people whose achievements seem too high for us to relate. I want to see some new way to connect people such that each of us, from a young age, can find role models for ourselves. Do you agree? And if so, how do you think it might be done?

Corporate Identity

Dave Pollard's blog on How to Save the World is a fascinating piece of work; he tries to take world problems and offer commentary and solutions from (for lack of a better descriptor) a corporate/capitalist perspective. He recently abandoned a well-paying job and for the past several months has been soul-searching and trying to think of a way to earn good pay doing something much more consistent with his ideals.

I find myself now in much the same situation; I am not long out of school and have concluded that I need more in my life than a 9-5 programming job. It's a big-picture issue - on the small scale, programming and solving just about any kind of problem can be quite rewarding. However, when you start thinking of the big picture, it's hard to say that translating lists from one format to another or compression or what-have-you can fill the Well that is *you*. My cup has grown larger. (I recall that analogy in regards to spirituality, the young have a much smaller cup to fill). As a programmer, someone who likes to do diligent numbers-work, likes to play more of a supporting than central attention-getting role, and an idealist, what spiritually fulfilling jobs are out there right now? Ironically, even the word "job" sounds banal to me right now.

Bouncing Ideas

I had a great conversation with my dad today about the future of advertisements given the way that the internet, blogs, wikis, podcasting, tivos, and peer-to-peer software has been changing the media that we are exposed to today. It was exhilarating listening to my father's ideas, synthesizing the material that I've been exposed to, and putting my own ideas out there hoping to help him out. I want to do that every day! Perhaps teaching or researching is what I ought to be gearing myself into? Or maybe writing could be my forte? Give me some ideas, people!

Blog-readers Anonymous

Ok, so here's the thing that I'm trying to figure out. Reading blogs has become somewhat of an obsession for me. I'll read a ton of them every day, bookmark the links that I find interesting to del.icio.us. Many of those will never actually be revisited, and some of them I didn't even take the time to read at first. I'll email the few that I think certain friends and family just -should-not-miss- on to them.

Then what? I guess I have interesting tidbits for conversation, but that hardly warrants hours and hours of reading. The bloggers' answer I'm sure is to synthesize what you read and contribute - the "read/write web" if you will. But even then, why bother? There's more than enough content out there already, and I'm just not sure what contribution I can make (especially on my own, quite isolated blog.) I don't have many friends who are interested in the LiveJournal or blogging or anything like that and don't feel like searching out "web friends" to connect on *that* level. So what do you do with reading hundreds of entries every day? I guess it's personal edification for its own sake. I need to synthesize some better life goals.