I know that Jake will make fun of me for this one because I claimed I wasn’t enough of a Tumblr Hipster to use pummelvision, but I sneakily queued it up a day or so ago and the results are in. For some reason the photos only start around 2007 even though my Flickr stream starts long before then. Despite that, though, it’s pretty cool to see it the last few years fly by. Enjoy:
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Back in June I made a bit of an impulse decision. A quick trip back to the East Coast pointed out a few bad habits I’d developed since moving to San Francisco and it was time to fix that. The first to go: my cable subscription.
The morning after returning from my trip I made a call to Comcast and asked them to cancel my subscription. They tried to keep me as a customer, as they are wont to do, but I was convinced. The TV was ruining my ability to function. It had to go.
Backing up a bit:
I’m very much aware that I have a bit of an obsessive personality. It’s why I like projects so much. It’s why I was absolutely petrified to try alcohol for the first time (luckily I don’t particularly like it). It’s why I always make sure the candy bars are lined up at the grocery store checkout. It’s a personality quirk. Whatever. I deal with it.
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Last year my roommate April and I set out to write a list of 101 things that we each wanted to accomplish in 2009. It’s hard to believe that today is already Day 365. SO much has happened this past year that I don’t even know where to begin, but I think it’s safe to say this was one of the most eventful years of my life so far.
Throughout the year I really enjoyed having my list to come back to when I was feeling bored, unproductive, or reflective. It was great to have a tangible set of things that I wanted to do that I could check off along the way. It’s why I created 101in365. I wanted to do it again, but even better this time around.
I rarely made a conscious effort to accomplish one of the items on the list. I generally just let life happen and along the way hope to tick off as many as I could. I’m disappointed that I couldn’t finish a few of them but overall I’m happy with what I was able to accomplish this year. So, without further ado, the list:
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I’ve been having a tough time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. True, it’s only the first week of December, but I think a large part of it is the lack of seasons here in San Francisco. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas. I haven’t even seen snow yet this year! In an attempt to try to force myself to be cheery, here’s a little round-up of cool Christmas/Holiday things I find around the web. I’ll probably keep updating this post as I find more but I wanted to share these two right away since they’re more time sensitive. Enjoy!
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Every once in a while I poke around Kickstarter looking for cool projects. It’s inspiring and an interesting model for supporting a project or cause. Not to mention, pretty much anything that Andy Baio gets behind is going to be cool.
I’ve seen a few cool projects go here or there that I was intrigued by, but I haven’t necessarily felt compelled to contribute – until today. There is a really good batch of project proposals vying for support and I finally gave in to one of them: Designing Obama.
The proposal is this:
…The Design Director of the Obama campaign, Scott Thomas, has collaborated with artists and designers to create Designing Obama, a chronicle of the art and design from the historic campaign. Get the inside story on how design was used by the campaign, and scope out the pieces, created unofficially, by grassroots supporters.
The 360-page book is full-color and hardbound, highly crafted with an embossed sleeve…
I’m a bit of a design geek and I can’t wait to get my hands on this book! Fellow design geeks and Obama supporters alike should definitely help Scott Thomas reach his goal. He’s 3/4 of the way there! And while you’re at it check out the other Kickstarter projects – there’s something for everyone!
Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired and the man who made The Long Tail
I’ve had the book on my to-read list for a few months now, but as part of one of my “money management” resolutions, I’ve decided to only buy books if absolutely necessary, especially considering the number of unread books sitting on my bookshelf at the moment and even more especially considering the fact that there is a branch of the San Francisco Public Library about 2 blocks from my apartment. It’s rather ironic, but absolutely fitting that I wouldn’t buy a book called Free. I’m glad I waited, though!
Yesterday, as I was browsing through the iTunes store looking for podcasts, I stumbled across this one. It’s a podcast of Chris Anderson reading the book! Why they chose to call it a podcast instead of an audiobook is an interesting question in itself, but that’s not the point. The book is free. Download it.
I haven’t finished it yet, but so far it’s pretty interesting in a Freakonomics
Not sure if I’ll do any sort of review of the book once I’ve finished listening to it, but I thought it was a pretty nifty find (it is a $22 book after all!). If you’re into techy/culture/sociology types of books, almost all of Lawrence Lessig‘s books are also available online under a Creative Commons license with more coming soon. I haven’t found any free audio versions of them (or any other good books) yet, but if you have, let me know!
Enjoy!