Sunday, December 30th, 2007

Between Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Newsvine, Reddit, Pownce, Virb, Last.fm, Flickr, Tumblr, del.icio.us, a plethora of RSS feeds, email, IM … you get the picture … there’s a lot of social networking to be done! So much, in fact, that it becomes a chore just to keep up.

I wanted to simplify my ‘digital life’, so I dumped much of the cruft over the past month.

First, I deleted my accounts for over half of the sites I previously belonged to: Myspace, Digg, Pownce, Last.fm, Tumblr and Virb all got the axe, to name a few. Second, I locked down or seriously limited the remaining accounts. Third, I subscribed to the Flickr & del.icio.us streams of recently posted items - that way I won’t be logging into the site unless there is new, relevant, activity.. Finally, I went through and deleted many of the RSS feeds I rarely read, and deleted many facebook & twitter friends I rarely bother with anyway.

I suppose I’ll keep my LinkedIn profile around for the time being, but I basically intend on using Twitter, Flickr and del.icio.us for now. And even of those, I’m going to be using them a whole lot less.

Here are some interesting articles about the subject:

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/11/26/facebook-will-sink-u.html

http://www.bubblegeneration.com/2007/12/industry-note-more-evil-than-evil.cfm

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Posted on December 30th, 2007 | No Comments »

Wednesday, December 26th, 2007

Check out this amazing time-lapse photo of the sun over the course of the winter solstice a few days ago. Very neat to see the perfect arc of the sun.

Posted on December 26th, 2007 | 2 Comments »

Tuesday, December 25th, 2007

I just wanted to take a second to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! Hope you get a day to relax, spend time with loved ones, and all that good stuff.

Posted on December 25th, 2007 | No Comments »

Tuesday, December 18th, 2007

It’s Going To Be a Wii Christmas

Wii demand continues to soar. Good thing I have an awesome girlfriend.

Posted on December 18th, 2007 | No Comments »

Tuesday, December 18th, 2007

Bending the Curve: Options for Achieving Savings and Improving Value in U.S. Health Spending

Health spending in the United States is projected to increase from 16 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2006 to 20 percent in 2016—from $2 trillion to $4 trillion in 10 years. At the same time, the number of people who are uninsured is rising sharply, including a growing proportion of middle-income families. While rising costs are putting all sectors of the economy at risk, the nation lacks a concrete, realistic plan for adopting a different approach that could achieve savings and improve value.

To inform national discussions and spur progress toward such a plan, The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System sponsored this report, which examines 15 federal policy options and their potential for lowering health spending over the next 10 years, relative to projected trends.

This study points out that some form of universal health care - not a single-payer system, mind you, but some form of universal health care - would actually save the taxpayer money due to the increased focus on prevention and the decreased reliance on emergency room care for uninsured individuals.

Quite a verbose article, but a good read nonetheless.

Posted on December 18th, 2007 | No Comments »