Author: Mike P. Lewis

When you are old

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I read this passage on the plane this morning and it got me thinking…

When You Are Old

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars
– William Butler Yeats

Here’s a woman looking back on her life thinking of herself and past loved ones. Did the woman reject love at one point or has it just passed her by?  I love the thought of Love fleeing and hiding its face amid a crowd of stars.  To me this is either because its a perfect love in an absolute sense or because its gone and now out of reach.  I like the former thought but i tend to think its written as the latter.  Anyone else with me?

Facebook let's you add to your mini-feed

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Lots of folks do stuff around the web that is outside of Facebook. For instance, i post lots of Flickr photos and i save web sites to delicious. I’ve always loved the Facebook News Feed as it does a good job of letting me know what my friends are up to. Today it got even better because Facebook now allows me to add Flickr, delicious, Yelp and Picassa actions into my mini-feed. Nice

This is great for a variety of reasons. First, it shows that facebook isn’t the walled garden that AOL was. Facebook is a walled garden, but only for certain things (social graph, photos, social messaging, etc.). For everything else, they are willing to open up and reciprocate. They made a platform to allow users to interact with their assets (people) and have a messaging feature so emails can come in and out but not replace. If they were a basketball team, they may not go around the country and play everyone but at least now they’ll let other come to their court and play a game.

Second, it shows they aren’t trying to be everything to everyone. It could be very easy for Facebook to believe that they can build better products than everyone else and try to compete. This is what AOL did for email, video, destination sites (Sports, News), communities, photos, maps, music, etc – and they lost big. Facebook is clearly maintaining its focus on social activities and even recognizes the difference between their photo app (social photo sharing, not for storage) and Flickr’s (photo blogging, archival) and embraces that. Kudos to them.

Speaking of handing out kudos, you should watch this video (below) of Andrew Bogut’s high fives after his free throws. Not everyone is that eager to congratulate someone.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc11PUnFgkQ]

My Love of TripIt Grows

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I’ve been traveling a lot lately and for each trip i make sure to throw my airline, car and hotel details into TripIt as it does a great job of building an itinerary.  You can share the trips you set up with other travelers and all collaborate together.  It also gives you an iCal link which you can put inside your Google Calendar so all your trip information is integrated right into you digital life. It’s a great application and i’ve thought so for a while

I’ve always had one complaint for TripIt and that is it’s a horrible application to access on the road.  My iPhone interface takes a long time to load and i’ve had a few times where i stood staring at an Avis employee making small talk while my TripIt page loads on my phone so i could get my confirmation number.  Those days are over as TripIt Mobile just launched and now a custom, fast-loading site has launched.  I couldn’t be more excited

Grandmaster Flash's Science

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Everyone’s a pioneer in their own way.  This is from a quote i picked up in this month’s Wired Magazine.  In 1973 Grandmaster Flash invented Turntablism:

The DJ’s at the time were picking up the arm and dropping it down exactly on the break of the song. But i was dancing, and i noticed everybody’s head was bobbing at the same time, and then suddenly everyone’s head would go in disarray, and then come back together again.  I found this to be very strange.  From that moment, i decided to come up with a science that would allow me to have full control to manually edit the beat.  I came up with the science called Quick Mix theory. It consisted of me having to do something that DJ’s at the time never did: placing my finger on the vinyl. I was ridiculed for a long time. I was told that i ruined needles, ruined styluses, ruined records, and also that placing my fingers on the vinyl was something DJ’s never did because I’d make the record filthy. But i knew that i had to do it to have full control over the vinyl

In Defense of Boredom

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In the latest copy of The Week, i read a great article about boredom. My favorite lines:

To be bored is to stop reacting to the external world, and to explore the internal one. It is in reflection that people often discover something new, whether it is an epiphany about a relationship or a new theory about the way the universe works. Granted many people emerge from boredom feeling that they have accomplished nothing. But is accomplishment really the point of life? There is a strong argument that boredom – so often parodied as a glassy-eyed drooling state of nothingness – is an essential human emotion that underlies art, literature, philosophy, science, and even love.

If you think of boredom as the prelude to creativity, and loneliness as the prelude to engagement of the imagination, then they are good things. They are doorways to something better, as opposed to something to be abhorred and eradicated immediately

I agree – solitary time whether hiking or running or just thinking is a great thing. With my cell phone, Tivo, iPod, work, and busy schedule, it doesn’t happen as often but i do think it’s important. You agree?

To further illustrate this last point. Check out this quote from JK Rowling talking about her experience sitting board on a train:

It was extraordinary, because i had never planned to write for children. Harry came to me immediately, as did the school and a few of the other characters such as Nearly Headless Nick, the ghost whose head is not quite cut off. The train was delayed, and for hours i sat there thinkig and thinking and thinking… The irony is I almost always have pen and paper; I write all the time. And on this one occassion when i had the idea of my life, I didn’t have a pen. For hour hours my head was buzzing. It was probably the best thing, because I ended up working the whole thinking out before i got off the train

Do you "get" Twitter?

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I read a post today by Fred Wilson that his kids finally “got” twitter. He wrote:

We are headed to Honolulu today. I twittered that fact and within minutes Joshua was back to me (via text message) with a recommendation for a ramen place called tenkaippin. I didn’t ask for it, but he offered it and we are now headed there for lunch

Earlier this week Jessica had gotten a text from her friends who were in boston visiting colleges. They wanted a recommendation for a sushi place. Jess asked me and I twittered the question

We got back a half dozen messages, and quickly determined the best place which she texted back. Her friends were thrilled

They used to think twitter was a stalker service. They still do, but they also think its awesome (‘at least for you dad’)

i hear what his kids are saying. I’ve been using Twitter for about a month now and while i see some useful parts of it, the service has yet to deliver the goods to me. I don’t have enough people i know on it and i don’t get enough useful twitter posts. It seems to be simply a way for people to advertise for themselves. There’s no real communication. I also don’t know if i should be following more strangers or if that’s tacky. The strangers i do follow (because their are blogs i read) like Mashable and Calcanis simply repeat what’s on their blogs so it’s pointless. I wish they could take the time to add a little more personality to the medium.

twitterimage.png

I think it’s hard for kids – or anyone – to understand the utility of Twitter because for the new user it doesn’t offer any immediately positive feedback or benefit. When you first begin, you twitter something and nothing happens – you just sit there. Similar to a typical social network, it’s not until you have lots of friends using it or until lots of users are following you that it becomes useful and even then i’m not sure if it’s much different than a massive chatroom with a better interface

Twitter may hit the mainstream, but i’d be willing to guess that it’s only useful for the hardcore who are actively trying to make it useful. That’s not mainstream, that’s digging for gold. I personally want my web services to just hand me the gold.

American Idol's Top 10

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My thoughts on the Top 10. It turns out i don’t need to post my thoughts, but Television Without Pity summed it up perfectly for me:

…when Amanda sings, I feel like I’m in a bar; when David Cook sings, I feel like I’m in a club; when Brooke sings, I feel like I’m in an amphitheater; when Jason sings, I feel like I’m in my dealer’s living room; but when David Archuleta sings, I feel like I’m watching a high school talent show. Every time. And it’s a performing arts high school for gifted kids, absolutely. And he’s clearly the best in the talent show, and he’ll totally win and deservedly so. But if you’re asking me to list the places I’d pay to be, I’d rather see Amanda at the bar, David Cook at the club, Brooke at the concert hall, and Jason at my dealer’s house than go to David A.’s talent show.

So true. After hearing Achuleta sing “Imagine” i never thought i’d turn on him. But i now realize that he doesn’t have the personality to bring it home. Personally, i hope Cook takes the prize as his songs are the only ones i could possibly imagine in my iPod.

I’d also like to just hang out with Syesha – maybe go to the mall with her and go shopping. Maybe ask her to do that baby crying trick one more time. She seems like she’d be pretty fun to just chill with. I’m just saying.

Red Band Trailers are Back!

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There are 2 types of trailers: red-band and green-band. The trailer you usually see in front of a movie that reads, “This trailer has been approved for all audiences” has a green background and is a “green-band” trailer. There is another kind, the red-band, that is not approved for all audiences because it has something “bad” in it (read: more fun to watch).

In the past, only green-band trailers have been shown. But today, Regal Cinemas announced that they are going to start showing red-band trailers again. And since Regal is the nations largest chain, i have to hope that this starts a trend of it getting nasty before your film begins.

The Smart and the Silly

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I’ve got two videos for you today. The first is a WWII type battle done with all different types of food. It’s done so well that it’s memorizing

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=e-yldqNkGfo]

The second is really cool. It’s a neck brace that will project your voice

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyN4ViZ21N0]