Freeform

Mr. President, that is one huge to-do list. I’m all for making America, the world and the known universe a better and more equal place for all, but sometimes I think we Americans are fighting so much with each other because we’re just a bit tired, like two-year-olds at the end of a vacation on … Read more

It’s exhausting. So many services to make my life easier are just making it harder. This one, old to you but new to me: http://gplus.to/ Great; it allows me to share a short URL with “hellotumo” at the end that links to my Google+ profile. I didn’t feel hugely compelled to grab this, but I … Read more

Numerous technologies are attempting to save us time by making choices about our media consumption for us. Netflix suggests movies. The NYT recommends articles. I like Pandora’s version of this so much, I paid for the upgraded service. As amazing as this is, it makes me wonder about what we’re losing. In the past, I … Read more

In the video above, you get a succinct description of the structure of heroic stories (via Animal). Real life refuses to follow such tidy formulas, but I’m pretty certain I’ve paid a visit to all of the stages, though never in a neat or necessarily progressive order, and never in a systematic or timely fashion. … Read more

There’s no reason I should be writing this on Turkey Day, but I was taking a news-reading break, and this particular update is one of those “Facebook is about to make you mad” stories, so I couldn’t resist. Facebook wants to let anyone email you at your @facebook.com address, Reuters reports (the Facebook announcement is … Read more

Because I usually get a link with no commentary on it — a moment of quiet amid the clamor of yet another URL washing against the steadily fracturing shores of my attention span. So I would read, “‘Social Risk’ Test Ordered by China for Big Projects,”not “China figures out bulldozing over people like they do … Read more

Because I usually get a link with a little bit of commentary on it — another sprinkle of “why this matters” dusting yet another URL washing against the steadily fracturing shores of my attention span. So I would read, “China figures out bulldozing over people like they do old buildings is a bad idea” with … Read more

In a world of effectively infinite information, extraordinary value is to be found in folks who can tell us how much we need to know or how much information we need to produce. When exactly do you know a message has been conveyed? Guess it depends on the goal of the communication. But isn’t all … Read more