Author: Ruby Sinreich

The thing about the “Bloggies” is that it’s usually full of web sites I’ve never seen before. This is a pain because how the hell am I supposed to vote on the best weblogs of the year if I don’t know anything about them?

But this is also awesome because now I have a list to peruse of some of the best ‘blogs, as recommended by my fellow netizens. However, I think I’m about at my limit for how many blogs I can read. Bloglines really helps, but I think 100 is plenty to attempt to keep up with. (Actually, I’m up to 140!) If I add any more, something will have to go.

Voting is only open for ONE WEEK, so check out the Bloggies and cast your vote now!

I recorded
another audio show with Brian to be
podcast on
AudioActivism.org. The show is called “3 URLs” so I talked about 3 different websites that are rocking my boat lately: 43things.com,del.icio.us, and forum.rockridgeinstitute.org. The theme tying these together is that not only can they act as tools for social justice, they all use RSS. (Have I mentioned how much I love RSS? Oh yeah,
I have.)

I actually think this show was more interesting than the
last time I was interviewed for 3 URLs (10/17/04) because it was more conversational, we talked about more than just the websites. We talked a lot about our opinions on objectivity, sort of continuing the discussion from my brief appearance on On Point.

So anyway, you don’t have to have an iPod or anything special to listen to it. Please check it out and let me (or Brian) know what you think.

What a wonderful headline! Good story too:

I have discovered a few cool new web sites that make great use of syndicated feeds. Most of these sites aren’t about RSS, but they all utilize it in new ways. They also all have social/sharing aspects that form their own communities. To me this is some of the best of what the web can do right now. It’s very exciting (yes, I know I’m a geek).

• 43 Things
  This site lists and aggregates people’s goals. Want to drive across the USA? So do 66 other people, and 60 people already did it and will tell you if it’s worthwhile.
• Woot
  This website sells one thing each day, no more no less. Subscribe to their feed and you can check out the item without having to go to their site. Each item sold also has a forum where users can discuss the product.
• Ta-da lists
  This is a simple to-do list system, but you can share lists publicly and publish a feed of your list items.

And my old favorites (most of which I discussed on 3 URLs on AudioActivism.org last October):

• flickr
  Post photos, tag (categorize) them, make slideshows, surf other people’s tags, comment on their photos, etc.
• del.icio.us
  This is a web-based system to store your bookmarks. This is especially great for people who work from different computers all the time. You can tag your bookmarks, and see what other people are bookmarking. Subscribe to a del.icio.us tag by RSS and see everything people post on that tag. Some folks are making an effort to collect nonprofit technology resources by collectively using the tag “nptech.”
• Bloglines, duh!
  This is what I use to subscribe to all of the afore-mentioned RSS feeds! Not only is it free and easy to use, they even have a mobile version which works nicely on my Treo. It’s also social in that you can see who else subscribes to feeds you like and then see what else they are reading.

A friend of mine has been talking about an unintended consequence of the Iraq war. Thanks to new body armor, more soldiers are surviving attacks… but losing limbs. Our friend Jon is a case in point, he probably would have died without the armor but instead he only lost a (very important) limb. There are already thousands like him and more every day. My friend says our generation will have a much higher percentage of amputees than others before us.

Another consequence we we will be seeing more of is post traumatic stress disorder, and it’s going to be
ugly
.

I’m certainly glad to see Michael Powell resign as the FCC Chairman. But it’s not like Bush is going to appoint someone better. Look at Alberto “I love torture” Gonzales replacing John Ashcroft, for example. Anyway, we should use this brief window of opportunity to
let Bush know what kind of FCC chair we want to see. As if his next toady isn’t already lined up…

Happy
fucking
inauguration.

So one of the awesome things about Flickr is the system of collective tags. You can use any tags you like and you can surf other people’s photos by tag. I took the suggestion from some random blog to check out the “iraq” tag. It’s mostly pictures of and by soldiers in Iraq (and interesting people and scenery), and also some other pictures of the conflict’s consequences here at home such as protests and crying babies. I highly recomend checking it out, you can even subscribe to it as an RSS feed.

When I took this photo (those are icicles in the fountain) three hours ago it was just freezing cold, now it’s snowing… and sticking! Two weeks ago it was in the 70’s! What is going on? Can anyone still doubt that we humans have made some permanent changes to the planet’s ecology? Even if we stopped polluting right now, the worst is yet to come.

This being the piedmont of North Carolina you can now expect a total (justified in my opinion) freakout as the schools close and drivers start swerving all over the road. Look: the truth is that we don’t know how to drive on this stuff. Just admit it!