Daily Bookmarks
Posted on February 15th, 2007
Links bookmarked on 2007-02-15
- How Many of Me — Census Search for “Hans Gerwitz“
Finally, proof that I do not exist. - LOC St. Louis maps
Great stuff from the Library of Congress, including Pictorial St. Louis 1875
Tags: data, history, links, maps, me, stlouis
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The Meaning of Life
Posted on February 11th, 2007
For me, the meaning of life is to leave the world a better place than you found it. Many of us will come and go, leaving ripples that fade over time into the noise of history. A select few, though, will play the role of chaos theory’s butterfly. Through actions that perhaps even appear insignificant, they’ll kick off waves of change that leave a lasting impression on the landscape of human culture. I hope that somehow I manage to start some waves that improve the human condition over the long term.
I’f I’d know it’d end up in print I might’ve given more thought to that particular blog comment.
Tags: me, media, personal
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Relevance
Posted on February 6th, 2007
Jim captures the essence of why I stopped following local news: it favors the trivial. During college I ended up relying on NPR to keep abreast of things.
But when I stopped commuting, I lost that radio-listening time. Since I’d already taken to RSS feeds for most information streams, I eventually tried adding the BBC and Google News; there’s no lack of seemingly important, well-filtered sources. But as I was reminded recently trying to follow the BBC Twitter, I just can’t convince myself the news is noteworthy. Like biting my fingernails, drinking cola, or eating meat, time away from the habit dispelled the urge.
I wasn’t able to articulate my perspective until Brian did it for me: it may seem important today, but most of the “news” is too transient to matter. Which explains why I can still be bothered with social commentary, the advancement of knowledge, and the just damn interesting.
Tags: me, media, personal
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Being erased
Posted on January 28th, 2007
Inspired by a mention of Eternal September, I spent some time today trying to place my memory of it on the ol’ mental timeline.
Last time I researched myself, Google found many of my Usenet posts from 1993. Today, though, it finds only a handful, with the earliest discoverable message from November 1993 and a nostalgia-inducing attempt to help someone else find dial-up Internet access in St. Louis. Searching on unique strings (such as my 3rd online moniker, “samhain nivhwvs”), though, fails to find posts that nonetheless still appear in the archives if referenced directly. My name, for example, never brings up my February 15, 1993 vote for sci.linear.
Curse you, Google! You may deny my content but you’ll never erase me!
Tags: history, me, net, personal, web
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Downsizing the Monkeysphere
Posted on January 15th, 2007
It was recently pointed out to me that my LinkedIn profile has grown to 118 connections. If you asked me to name people I know, I doubt I’d be able to produce a list that long, so I determined it was time to go through and trim those one-time professional contacts that I don’t expect to every reconnect with.
I expected to cut about 50%. I actually identified only 9, and 3 of those were just obsolete duplicate profiles. Now I’m pondering how to rekindle the handful of connections that I elected to leave active even though I haven’t talked with them recently. One promising idea is to simply run through the remaining list of 108 and offer an endorsement to each.
During this exercise I noticed that a few others had entered headlines for themselves that were more interesting than the usual Current Position at Current Employer. The winner for best headline is Ryan, the Time 2006 Person of the Year.
Tags: me
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