Unabashed

Anyone using Plurk? It’s got an appealing format, even if it is just Twitter on ‘roids. But it looks like it could be fun. If you’re there, friend me up at username reevolver…It’s lonely out in Plurkdom.

written by Matt Mitchell

Joel Johnson over at BoingBoing is camping in the woods for a week–er, four days–in Harriman State Park in New York, with the intention of blogging using only solar power while he’s out. Sounds like fun to me. Keep up with his progress (or lack thereof) at BoingBoing.net as well as his Twitter account. He also has a Flickr account, so maybe he’ll photolog his journey as well.

This is an interesting project to me, and finally gave me reason enough to get a Twitter account of my own, even though I’m not much for texting…we’ll see how it goes. Follow me, or friend me if you like, on Twitter (as with every other social networking service on the internets) I am mattmitchell8. 

I’ve got two headlamps from Coghlan’s, the 0843 and the 0841.

I’ve got my Amazon Kindle with a copy of Walden on it. (Which I’ve never read.)

Got my knife. Got good socks. Have lightweight, silkie thermals for the evening. Have the most beat-up ball cap around. Have sunscreen. Have fire. Have cables, spare batteries, and trash bags just in case I need to cover something up.

Got my tent, the Hubba Solo, again on multiple recommendations from readers. I haven’t set it up yet, which means that it’s a certainty it will be missing parts or that I’ll have to do so in a freak Hudson Valley hurricane. Oh well — it’ll be good comedy, right?

I’ve got my camera and the Gorilla Pod.

I’ve got rhythm.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: blog, blogger, boingboing, Joel Johnson, solar power, twitter

I’m liking the new Yahoo! Answers model. The internet mainstay for information has been Wikipedia for a few years now, but if you’re looking for a specific answer to an individual question, Yahoo! Answers is a better option. For instance, while researching for the second moon theory article I did, finding nothing on Wikipedia, I went over to Y!A and did a quick search there and got a load of info back.

Y!A is not so good for browsing. Y!A gives credits for questions asked, so there are a lot of filler questions, like “How cold is it where you are today?” or “What should I wear for my date tonite?” Yeah, there’s some stupid stuff, and I hate filler, but if you have a specific question in mind it can be a beneficial tool. I asked this morning “Why is Bombay now known as Mumbai?” and got a thoroughly sufficient answer:

The appellation Mumbai is an eponym, etymologically derived from Mumba or Maha-Amba— the name of the Hindu goddess Mumbadevi, and Aai — mother in Marathi. In the 16th century, the Portuguese named the area Bom Bahai (Good Bay), later corrupted to Bomaím or Bombaim, by which it is still known in Portuguese. After the British gained possession, it was anglicised to Bombay, although it was known as Mumbai or Mambai to Marathi and Gujarati-speakers, and as Bambai in Hindi, Urdu, and Persian. The name was officially changed to Mumbai in 1995.

How accurate is it? Hell, I have no idea. But it sounds good enough for me. There are some wrong answers out there because, based on Yahoo!’s model, which awards people who ask questions, there are a lot of repeat questions. But it’s still possible to get a good answer for almost any question.

For me, I still like the name Bombay, but maybe Mumbai will grow on me.

written by Matt Mitchell

If this is true, the web may finally kill network television.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: DSL

Well, dammit, now I’ve gone and gotten hooked on something else on teh intronetters. Like I need any more addictions. I’ve gone and signed up for, like, six social networks over at Ning. I don’t have enough time to keep up with the digital shadow I’ve already got running beside me, and there goes that bastard, pulling ahead, now I’m in tow, now I’m in the mud, sinking, singing… Oh well, at least I’ll be very, very entertained (can somebody put that on my tombstone after my wife justifiably kills me for neglecting my family?).

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Ning, psuburbia, social networking

I’ve put together a social networking site over at Ning called Psuburbia. Check it out.

I’m also working on a Wetpaint wiki for my novel “Modern-Day Mythica,” which is still unpublished, but I’m working on that. The wiki will explore the universe I’ve created in detail. It’s unfinished, but feel free to check it out anyway.

Beyond that the last two days have been pure internet toil and drudgery (when I wasn’t at work). I’ve been looking into social networks, StumbleUpon, Digg, Sphere and tons of other places. If you’d like to friend me anywhere on teh internets, my handle is usually mattmitchell8 (because evidently I am the eighth Matt Mitchell on the interwubby).

And to cap off a Friday night, have a Guinness Stout on me:

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Guinness, Stout

If you’re trying to subscribe to my RSS feed through Bloglines, I’m sorry, it doesn’t work. I don’t know why. You can subscribe through your browser, through email, and–guess what–you can subscribe using the Google Feed Reader. I’ve been sick of Bloglines anyway; even after I’ve read a post it’ll show up as new the next day. So, enough, I’m fed up, I’m switching to Google Reader.

written by Matt Mitchell

I’ve been thinking about this blog thing and blogging in general for the past few days and I have to admit I have no clear answers as to what this thing (this thing being my blog) is or wants to be. Part of me tells me not to worry about it, just post publication alerts and the journal of the struggles of the (hopefully) emerging writer and leave it at that. But there’s this creative side of me that wants it to be more, though more in what way I do not know. Here’s what I do know:

• Of blogging in general I do not want to do what’s already been done. Meaning, I do not want to create a blog that emulates the successful blogs of other writers, like Warren Ellis or John Scalzi. I would rather speak with my own voice than another’s.
• I don’t have time to do a lot of research or field work for the blog, because I am a full-time employee and my off-time is filled with wife, babies, and writing. So whatever it becomes needs to be relatively low impact, while at the same time interesting. —HA! And therein lies the crux!
• I do not want to review movies or books or music. I like what I like and I find it difficult to tell you why other than to say thumbs up or thumbs down.
• I’m not what you might call an intellectual, so anything overly cerebral is out of the question because I would just eventually reveal my own intellectual shortcomings. For a smartly-crafted occasional essay, I’ll creep over to Charlie Stross’s blog.
• And lastly, I’m not going to bore any potential audience with my day-to-day life. There are plenty of blogs out there doing that everyday anyway, and my life right now is filled with more poopy diapers than I care to report.

So what does that leave me with? Not much, unless genuine inspiration strikes.
Digging around on the Web, I’ve figured out that there are two kinds of blogs:

1. Personal
2. Topical

A topical blog is one that’s about a certain topic, like cameras or hot-air balloons. Something very specific. A personal blog is one that’s in more of a diary or journal format. Most of the blogs I read by writers who have met with varying degrees of success (as a writer) are generally of the personal type. They wisely use their blogs as promotional tools to sell their books, but each of them has that certain unique voice, from Warren Ellis’s sometimes disturbing show-and-tell, to Scalzi’s ability to write rather entertainingly on almost any subject, to Charlie Stross’s sharply intellectual commentary on SciFi and science in general. So what do I want to do on my blog? Mostly I want to tell stories; but stories are worth money, and in the publishing world if I put something on the web, even on my blog, that counts as a publication and thus the great and mighty publishers will deny all submissions that have ever been on the Web at all. So I can’t tell you stories. I’ve tried in the past but all of a sudden something will show promise and I have to pull it down before I rewrite it so I can submit it.

This isn’t something I have an answer for just yet. MattMitchellFiction.com is my home one the web, and being named what it is you might expect to find fiction on it, but alas, no. The publishing world is too restrictive for that.

written by Matt Mitchell

I like to sometimes browse through the archives of blogs that I like. Here’s a neat bit from Warren Ellis circa March of 2005:

Let’s assume you’ve got a website of some kind, a computer that does stuff without coal and a hand crank, and the sick wish to worm yourself into people’s brains. How many ways can you do that?

Record a short mp3 and you’re a ringtone. Take a picture and cut it down to around 150 pixels across by 200 tall and you’re a phone wallpaper. How simple is that? Anyone whose phone is equipped with a way of changing its screen’s appearance can carry you in their pocket. PayPal five US dollars a month to LibSyn and you’re a broadcaster, sending out audio and/or video to anyone who wants it. If it’s just audio, stream it off a MySpace page for free. You can be a t-shirt, a coffee cup, a visual brand across a bunch of objects. You can be a badge or a sticker. A photographic print, a magazine, a book, a pack of postcards. An instant messaging icon, an LJ icon or a message board avatar.

Right there: an image, a sound, a radio star, a video star, a brand, a slogan, art, thought, iconography.

If someone had a mind to, they could become their own internet-powered brand with some speed. Tons of people could do it. They could design themselves to infiltrate cellphones and iPods, all the shit we’re told to own, all the shit we want to own for the pleasure of it but which by design comes contentless.

written by Matt Mitchell

David Louis Edelman:

It’s pretty astounding that 15 years after the Internet took off, you still can’t reliably search the web by author or date.

I’m looking forward to the remainder of this article.

written by Matt Mitchell

Google’s announced it’s new mobile search, a blessing for those of us who frequently surf the Web using mobile computing platforms, such as my Palm TX or my i870 mobile phone.

The premise is so simple, you’ve got to love it: when you do a search, for a bar, restaurant, etc., you get minimized results based on the information you might actually want rather than all those search results which you’d normally get surfing at a desktop or laptop. The intent is scintillating: exact results, and access to the data with the fewest clicks possible.

Using a search engine mobile has never really been an option until now; who wants to sift through all those irrelevant search results on a 1.5″ screen, or even a 3″ screen? But with this new product, Google’s given us a useful tool for today’s ‘Mobile E’ environment.

written by Matt Mitchell

Web2.0 strikes again.

Finally a better way to manage the internet’s mass of information. I’ve been a del.icio.us user for a couple of years now and I can tell you my account seems overwhelmingly crammed with stuff. Interesting stuff, but overwhelming nonetheless. Ditto for my IE bookmarks. Well, try this out for size:

[toread] is a great little tool that lets you view an article in your own time without having to bookmark it for later, either with your browser or in del.icio.us. Add a little javascript bookmark to your toolbar and when you find an article you’d like to read but don’t have the time at that moment, click the bookmark [toread] and it emails the page to your email address.

One great advantage to this–for me at least–is that I can surf the web on my desktop, find some articles or stories of interest, [toread] them and then check my email on my Palm TX later to read the articles. I love reading on the TX, I just hate surfing on it, so this kills both birds with the same bookmark :-)

This is what Web2.0 is supposed to be like, yes.

written by Matt Mitchell