This is a reply to Why Gen Y is Smarter, From a Gen X

We are becoming more dependent on technology. The use of a GPS like they mention in the TechCrunch article is a good example. GPS is great since it allows you to get to places very easily without having to carry a ton of maps around. If you miss your exit or hit a detour you can get back on track quickly. However if the GPS has invalid information or stops working many people would be completely lost, unable even to backtrack the way they came.

The risk is not that we’re outsourcing the storage of knowledge and facts, rather we’re outsourcing our thinking. Sometimes that’s a good thing. If you have a GPS that is getting a real-time feed of traffic conditions it may direct you a quicker route then you would have gone on your own. Mathematica can solve problems for you in seconds that would have been impossible or time consuming if done by hand. We still need to have the ability to interpret the results we’re getting so we know if it’s accurate or not. We have to trust that the GPS map data is accurate but at the same time compare it to what we see in front of us. We don’t want to drive off a cliff because the GPS tells us there is a bridge there.

Another problem I see is that the internet allows us to live within our own bubble. Prior to the internet, if you wanted to read news while you drank your coffee in the morning you had a choice of a handful of newspapers and magazines. Even when you selected the newspaper that resonated with your preferences (liberal vs conservative for example) you were exposed to a variety of stories about many different things. Now with news aggregation you could spend all day only reading news stories about how great Apple is. Before, even if you didn’t read all the articles you probably absorbed something from the headlines. It’s never been easier to isolate yourself in a world that doesn’t challenge your beliefs.

The way we consume information is changing. I find it’s difficult to read long form writing because I’m used to scanning headers and bulleted lists on the internet. I think this is bad and I should work on correcting this issue. If I try to read a book and find that my mind is wondering and unable to focus I will probably put the book down and do a Google search to find the abridged version.

At the end of the day we’re evolving to use the tools that are available to us. It will be a problem if a catastrophe occurs that takes down the internet and cellular network. With card catalogs on computers if a city lost power we wouldn’t even be able to find information in the physical books in our libraries. Heck without GPS we probably wouldn’t even be able to find the library. This isn’t very different from our reliance on cars. If you choose where you live based on the assumption of having a car, you have to balance that with the risk that someday your car might not be available.

I’ve been rolling around in my head for a while now about the best way to publish structured data via RSS. My primary use case is with syndicating data between websites, especially social networks like Brazen Careerist. I like the idea of pulling in a feed that has more information in it then just the rendered HTML.

I started thinking about this again after reading Dave Winer’s post WinerLinks and outliners because Dave provides structured OPML data for all of his blog posts. Looking at his RSS feed I noticed that he references these OPML files in each item with a scripting2:source tag which is defined in the Scripting2 namespace.

The only problem I see is he defines the tag as a link to the OPML source for the story behind the item. This is accurate for his use case, but what if the source for the item isn’t OPML? In the RSS 2.0 Specification they have an enclosure tag which is what’s used for podcasting. It would have been nice if the scripting2:source tag emulated the enclosure tag and required length and type in addition to the URL. This way if the source of my item is a CSV file, and Excel Spreadsheet or any other type of structured data we could link to it and the feed readers could potentially do something interesting with it.

Obviously there is nothing keeping me from creating my own RSS extension or just using the scripting2:source tag to point at something that isn’t an OPML file. I’d just prefer to do things the “right” way and not create another tag that is so similar to this existing one.

I sat down with Ryan Healy and Ryan Paugh, co-founders of Brazen Careerist. We talked about how they created Employee Evolution, met Penelope Trunk and started Brazen Careerist.

Tech in Madison Interview with Ryan Healy and Ryan Paugh by Tech in Madison is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

I’ve been trying to be more minimalist lately. I deleted the vast majority of blogs I follow in my RSS feed (I only follow 5 now). One of the blogs I still follow is Far Beyond the Stars by Everett Bogue. Everett is a guy who lives his live with a ridiculously small number of possessions (less then 100). I really resonate with his message but I find that I also conflict with it.

When I moved to CA (and then back again) moving all my stuff was a major expense and hassle. I’m currently living in a condo that’s a little over 1000 sq ft and I don’t know how my girlfriend could move in with me because there wouldn’t be enough room for both of our stuff. Just our clothes alone would be a problem. I have in my bedroom one closet and two tall dressers filled with clothes. I have three drawers filled with t-shirts. This is clearly ridiculous. There is absolutely no reason why two people couldn’t live comfortably in my condo. Especially if we’re a couple sharing a bedroom.

I’ve started getting rid of things. I took a bunch of books to Frugal Muse but they didn’t take many of them. I’ll probably offer up some of my computer books at my next PHP Meetup. Some of the stuff I feel like I’d have a hard time getting rid of are my DVDs and CDs. I’m not sure why the idea of getting rid of them bothers me so much. There are other things that I wouldn’t want to get rid of like my pinball machine. Ideally I’d have more pinball machines but I’m not sure why I have this desire to accumulate things.

I would have a lot more freedom without this weird desire to accumulate stuff. I’d be content living in my condo (which is paid off) instead of looking to buy a house and taking on a mortgage. I’d also have more money because I wouldn’t be spending it on stuff I don’t need. I live within my means, but I have almost no savings. There is no reason I shouldn’t be sitting on piles of money because I make a good salary and I don’t have a ton of fixed monthly expenses. I’d like to start a business of my own, but I can’t right now because of my lack of savings and my dependence on my salary.

Clearly I need to keep taking steps towards reducing what I spend and what I have. I’d like to have my girlfriend move in when her lease is up in 6 months so ideally I’ll need to get rid of half of what I have in my currently full condo. This is something I can do and I feel like I’ll be a much better person for it on the flip side.

I’m looking for a product that makes it easy for users of Brazen Careerist to set up and broadcast webcasts to other members of our site. The idea is that we want in our UI for a user to schedule a webcast that they want to host. At the time of the event they go to the event page and assuming they’re logged on already authorize the widget to have access to their camera and they see themselves with a broadcast button. We will have our own chat on the page so the webcasting has to be done entirely on our page, nothing to download, no going to another website.

Here are my ideal requirements:

• Ideally something we can pay for to be white label
• Flash widget to embed on our website
• API so I can programmatically create new events (get a webcast token or something)
• If there is an admin=true or something variable set the widget is in admin mode and the viewer is given a login prompt. There should also be an API so I can integrate this login with our existing user authentication.
• Once the admin logs in they see themselves as the viewers would, only they have a button in the corner so they can start and stop broadcasting.
• If the admin=true variable had not been set then it’s just in viewer mode and all they see is the webcast if the admin is broadcasting.
• Extra points if you could configure an image to show when the video is not being webcast.

This seems super simple but I’m not finding a solution anywhere. Sites like UStream, JustinTV, Livestream and Vokle all have giant interfaces that even if you can embed the webcast on a web page, the admin is not on the website, but rather in some special admin. They also tend to have features like chat and whatnot all built in. I can’t find anything that is just super simple embedded webcast software. Am I just not finding it or doesn’t this exist?

Here’s an example mockup of what it should look like for a webcaster:

Here’s an exercise I just came up with as a method to expand and pivot my passions. Start out with something that excites you, something that you’re really passionate about. Visualize that this activity or idea is just a lake that’s part of a big network of lakes, rivers, streams and oceans of passion. An example for me is running the Madison PHP Meetup Group.

Next start asking yourself questions. Why is this important? What about this jacks you up? Is this a subset of a larger passion of yours? We need to swim into the other bodies of passion that feed into or out of this idea. For my example I love running the PHP group because I enjoy teaching and helping people, solving problems, learning new things and sharing what I know.

Repeat the last step a few more times. Ask more questions not only on the original idea but on all the related ideas that you’re discovering. Pick some other things that you’re passionate about and work through the exercise on those ideas too. You’ll probably start to find overlap between things. These are your core passions. Other things I’m interested in are self development and entrepreneurship.

Once you have a giant list of ideas and activities and passions try to organize them. One way could be creating a mind map so you can look at how every idea is related.

The final step is to start coming up with some new ideas and activities. This can be done by finding patterns in what you see or by expanding or refining the ideas you already have. You’re not trying to find more things that you’re currently doing, but rather new things that you would probably be passionate about if you were doing them. These ideas can be things to strive for or to start working on. For myself since I like teaching and helping people and I’m also interested in entrepreneurship I’d probably be very passionate teaching entrepreneurship. Now I’m not currently qualified to do this, but it’s something that I could start working on.

Why is this useful? If you’re someone like me who’s interested in starting their own business, you’ll be happier doing something that you’re passionate about (and probably more successful). The larger the pool of passions you have, the more chances you’ll have to find one that can be built into a profitable business.

Recently I privately declared RSS bankruptcy. I had managed to tame my feeds in such a way that I could usually get through everything and some days I’d just clear out my low value feeds in order to keep up. Then on June 30th as part of The Dojo I attended an online webinar “Escaping the Techno ADD Loop” and as part of it I asked the question how to keep up with RSS? Obviously I don’t want to miss out on anything important. Well, first after I explained my organization system they pointed out that I should probably just kill my low value folder. They also mentioned that if a website is important enough, you’ll check it on your own and if you don’t, maybe it isn’t that important.

It really hit home with me because I was getting tired of being the guy always on his phone “checkin’ my feeds” every single moment of my day. So I went in there with a big knife and now I only follow 8 feeds. And of those 8 feeds only three of them post daily. I can now check my RSS feeds once in the morning and be done with it. Maybe if I feel like it after lunch I’ll check it again but there will be like one or two posts. I’m not feeling very liberated not having the Google Reader noose hanging around my neck.

So I have been essentially without a feed reader for almost a month and a half now. Then on Monday I had lunch with my good friend Dan and he brought up FlipBoard which is sort of like a digital magazine that pulls it’s content from your social networks. I connect it to facebook and twitter and I get instant magazines. It doesn’t show everything, but somehow curates the content and lays it out in a very attractive layout. The facebook content is not particularly good, but I’m very impressed with the content it pulls out of twitter. In addition to my main twitter feed, it allows me to create magazines from specific twitter users or lists.

So far I think this is a good replacement to RSS feeds. If some piece of news is really important it will probably show up in one of these magazines. It’s also does not require me to dig through lists of noise as it just selects some of the best parts and makes it really easy to scan. I can check this once or twice a day and not feel like I have to clear out everything. Right now you’re still somewhat limited with how you create magazines. The twitter search is pretty limited and there is (as far as I can tell) no RSS integration. I can’t complain too much since it’s a free app.

I sat down with Greg Tracy, co-founder of Sharendipity and creator of SMSMyBus to talk about how he got into technology and what he’s learned along the way.

Tech in Madison Interview with Greg Tracy by Tech in Madison is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

When I was out in California I was somewhat involved with the group of people starting Hacker Dojo. I’ve been interested in creating a similar type of space in Madison. I started looking around at spaces when I was telecommuting for PBwiki but the issue is always how to fund it. It’s a chicken and egg type problem. Do you get members before you find a space or do you find a space then get members? Well I can’t afford to go out there and sign a lease for office space and then not have any members so the project died off.

Recently with the buzz around Diaspora I became aware of the site Kickstarter which is a cool tool to raise funds for projects. I started thinking maybe this could be used to seed a Madison coworking space?

I’m going to need to touch bases with some of the other members of the Madison tech community and see if they think this is a good idea. I’m thinking this is a strategy that might work. If enough people donate money to seed the space then one, we have money to start the space and two, we would have people probably interested in being members.

There is a group called Sector67 which seems to be trying to create more of a MakerSpace but I’m thinking about more of a coworking space that can also be used for meetups and smaller events like SuperHappyDevHouse or Ignite.

I read an article today on Silicon Alley Insider Amazon Tells Small Publishers It Will Stop Selling Their Books If They Join Apple which if that was the case would clearly be big news. However I read the quote and I’m left scratching my head. It actually doesn’t seem from what they print in the article that Amazon is actually threatening to de-list publishers to sell with Apple. I figure I should do a little more research and follow the links back to the original article from Melville House Publishing Hysterical Amazon exec calls 911, says accelerator is stuck and he can’t keep from running over publishers and it further solidifies my initial impression. Here’s how I’m paraphrasing the conversation between Amazon and the Publisher:

Publisher: Hey Amazon, we’re not happy with this “Wholesale Model” for selling ebooks on your website
Amazon: So? That’s how we do it.
Publisher: But Apple is letting us sell with the “Agency Model” which we’re much happier with, we want to sell through Amazon with the Agency Model too
Amazon: No, we’re not interested in doing that
Publisher: But you’re doing it with Hachette, Harper, Penguin and Simon & Schuster!
Amazon: Well, we’re in negotiations with them, nothing is final yet
Publisher: We want to negotiate too
Amazon: No, as matter of policy we are declining to negotiate an agency model with any publisher outside of the five who have already announced agreements with Apple’s iBookstore
Publisher: But we want to negotiate
Amazon: Tough shit
Publisher: Well, us little guys are going to band together and FORCE you to do it our way
Amazon: Go right ahead, we’re more then happy to remove you from our website, we’re not negotiating
Publisher: Oh yeah? Well you have cooties and I’m telling Mom