In her bathroom, a friend of mine has some really beautiful illustrations of posts from the Craigslist Missed Connections section. If you've never looked at missed connections, you should -- there are some really wonderful notes in there (also some sketchy ones). Here's a beautiful one from today:
We were sitting opposite each other on the train. We caught eyes early in the ride, but you nodded off through most of it, but looked up as I was getting off. As the train moved you kept looking at me walking to the stairs. All I want to tell you is that you have the most beautiful clear blue grey eyes.
What's striking is how many of the missed connections take place in the subway. I've said before that
In her bathroom, a friend of mine has some really beautiful illustrations of posts from the Craigslist Missed Connections section. If you've never looked at missed connections, you should -- there are some really wonderful notes in there (also some sketchy ones). Here's a beautiful one from today:
We were sitting opposite each other on the train. We caught eyes early in the ride, but you nodded off through most of it, but looked up as I was getting off. As the train moved you kept looking at me walking to the stairs. All I want to tell you is that you have the most beautiful clear blue grey eyes.
What's striking is how many of the missed connections take place in the subway. I've said before that
; these posts confirm that, and are a really nice view into that slice of NYC life. The "ad hoc groupings" that take place on the subway also really resonate with the ideas in Dave Weinberger's
, which I'm reading right now. Dave talks about how on the web, groups take on a new meaning -- they form and unform quickly, and can be formed by very loose connections (such as commenters on a blog post). The city is the same way -- the people I'm standing with on the subway are an ad-hoc group that unforms just as fast as it forms. But there's definitely a connection. Typically, it takes an event of some kind, like a man talking into a banana phone or two people having a loud argument, to draw more outward communications among riders. But underneath it all, there's a hidden set of communications going on, and it's really beautiful to see it unearthed through Missed Connections. It turns out the posters are by a Brooklyn-based artist named
I love music, but I am really bad about keeping up with new stuff. My iTunes library is only so-so, so I spend most of my time listening to playlists on 8tracks. This is good for variety, and great for finding the right background music for a BBQ or party, but there's something missing: my friends. I have a few friends who have great taste in music, and who are totally on top of what's new and good. As it works now, every once in a while I'll get a recommendation from one of them, I'll buy the album on Amazon, and then I'll listen to it non-stop for a few weeks. It's great when it happens, but it doesn't happen that often. I want something more automated and frequent. A few of these friends publish their music on the web (see Piecemaker and
This week, we're on vacation in Cape Cod with my wife's family. They've been renting the same tiny cabin by the beach for the past 35 years, and coming here is pretty much the highlight of our summer each year. Last summer, we brought
; these posts confirm that, and are a really nice view into that slice of NYC life. The "ad hoc groupings" that take place on the subway also really resonate with the ideas in Dave Weinberger's
, which I'm reading right now. Dave talks about how on the web, groups take on a new meaning -- they form and unform quickly, and can be formed by very loose connections (such as commenters on a blog post). The city is the same way -- the people I'm standing with on the subway are an ad-hoc group that unforms just as fast as it forms. But there's definitely a connection. Typically, it takes an event of some kind, like a man talking into a banana phone or two people having a loud argument, to draw more outward communications among riders. But underneath it all, there's a hidden set of communications going on, and it's really beautiful to see it unearthed through Missed Connections. It turns out the posters are by a Brooklyn-based artist named
I love music, but I am really bad about keeping up with new stuff. My iTunes library is only so-so, so I spend most of my time listening to playlists on 8tracks. This is good for variety, and great for finding the right background music for a BBQ or party, but there's something missing: my friends. I have a few friends who have great taste in music, and who are totally on top of what's new and good. As it works now, every once in a while I'll get a recommendation from one of them, I'll buy the album on Amazon, and then I'll listen to it non-stop for a few weeks. It's great when it happens, but it doesn't happen that often. I want something more automated and frequent. A few of these friends publish their music on the web (see Piecemaker and
This week, we're on vacation in Cape Cod with my wife's family. They've been renting the same tiny cabin by the beach for the past 35 years, and coming here is pretty much the highlight of our summer each year. Last summer, we brought
My Brooklyn is Better
). Problem is, they each use different platforms to publish, and as far as I can tell, there's not a great way to combine these into one stream. Piecemaker uses WordPress and outputs a standard podcast feed, and My Brooklyn is Better uses Tumblr, which embeds a flash player and forbids linking directly to the audio file. I'm sure I have other friends who are publishing on platforms (Last.fm, 8tracks, Facebook?) that I don't know about yet). So, what I want is a way to take these streams, regardless of platform or format, and create a mixed feed or webpage. I don't care about actually downloading the music; I just want to be able to listen on the web, keep track of the ones I like, and have the option to buy the albums later. I'm sure this is possible using some combination of tools that are already out there. For starters, I'm playing around with
. We'll see if that works. But is there something out there that I'm missing that already does this in a more straightforward way? Seems like there must be, but I haven't found it yet.
here when he was just three weeks old. This morning, he and I took a walk along the harbor in Provincetown at low tide -- he thinks of each beached boat as a giant bucket, just waiting to be filled with sand. The problem is, whenever we're on vacation, I have a hard time finding the right balance between "unplugging" and staying engaged with the real world. One the one hand, I want to remain connected with work and friends, on the other, I just want to tune out, relax, and be with the people I'm with. Inevitably, I end up fighting the struggle each day, carving out some time for the important stuff at
, and forcing myself (with limited success) not to stress about it too much the rest of the time. It's tough, and to some extent I feel like I achieve the worst of both worlds: neither able to fully enjoy my break, nor be fully present for important happenings at the office. This has become more of an issue as technology has evolved. Here at the cabin there's never been any phone or TV. Then there were cell phones. Next, internet down the road at the town library. Then, iPhone and blackberries. Now, this year we have a mobile broadband connection for our laptops, so we're as connected as we can be. For certain things, it's great: we watched the World Cup final online last weekend, and yesterday my father-in-law did an interview via Skype, which saved him a day-long trip up to Maine. But, work email and things to do are now within arms reach at all times. I suppose the vacation case is just a microcosm of the larger question of how to balance real-world face time with online time. Fred Wilson, one of my favorite bloggers,
frequently, and I'm really amazed the extent to which he's able to stay engaged with the networked world without driving his family crazy. In our case, the family is only semi-digitally integrated; it's just not part of our culture to always be connected. Maybe getting an iPad would
-- using online (all?) time to do the most important and productive things, and not just consume endlessly as you might in a less online constrained environment. And of course, one of these days I'll be able to plan ahead enough so that everything is under control at the office and I don't have to worry about anything. But I'm sure if I did that, I'd find reasons to plug back in...
My Brooklyn is Better
). Problem is, they each use different platforms to publish, and as far as I can tell, there's not a great way to combine these into one stream. Piecemaker uses WordPress and outputs a standard podcast feed, and My Brooklyn is Better uses Tumblr, which embeds a flash player and forbids linking directly to the audio file. I'm sure I have other friends who are publishing on platforms (Last.fm, 8tracks, Facebook?) that I don't know about yet). So, what I want is a way to take these streams, regardless of platform or format, and create a mixed feed or webpage. I don't care about actually downloading the music; I just want to be able to listen on the web, keep track of the ones I like, and have the option to buy the albums later. I'm sure this is possible using some combination of tools that are already out there. For starters, I'm playing around with
. We'll see if that works. But is there something out there that I'm missing that already does this in a more straightforward way? Seems like there must be, but I haven't found it yet.
here when he was just three weeks old. This morning, he and I took a walk along the harbor in Provincetown at low tide -- he thinks of each beached boat as a giant bucket, just waiting to be filled with sand. The problem is, whenever we're on vacation, I have a hard time finding the right balance between "unplugging" and staying engaged with the real world. One the one hand, I want to remain connected with work and friends, on the other, I just want to tune out, relax, and be with the people I'm with. Inevitably, I end up fighting the struggle each day, carving out some time for the important stuff at
, and forcing myself (with limited success) not to stress about it too much the rest of the time. It's tough, and to some extent I feel like I achieve the worst of both worlds: neither able to fully enjoy my break, nor be fully present for important happenings at the office. This has become more of an issue as technology has evolved. Here at the cabin there's never been any phone or TV. Then there were cell phones. Next, internet down the road at the town library. Then, iPhone and blackberries. Now, this year we have a mobile broadband connection for our laptops, so we're as connected as we can be. For certain things, it's great: we watched the World Cup final online last weekend, and yesterday my father-in-law did an interview via Skype, which saved him a day-long trip up to Maine. But, work email and things to do are now within arms reach at all times. I suppose the vacation case is just a microcosm of the larger question of how to balance real-world face time with online time. Fred Wilson, one of my favorite bloggers,
frequently, and I'm really amazed the extent to which he's able to stay engaged with the networked world without driving his family crazy. In our case, the family is only semi-digitally integrated; it's just not part of our culture to always be connected. Maybe getting an iPad would
-- using online (all?) time to do the most important and productive things, and not just consume endlessly as you might in a less online constrained environment. And of course, one of these days I'll be able to plan ahead enough so that everything is under control at the office and I don't have to worry about anything. But I'm sure if I did that, I'd find reasons to plug back in...
