Recent articles in personal (page 10 of 12)

1. Apr 18, 2006 Concerning Freedom

   Went with Lox and Tom (and, it turned out, John) to see a lecture by Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing fame tonight. He's an extremely talented speaker, captivating a full house for over 90 minutes without budging from his lectern or throwing up a single visual aid. With a couple of high-profile speaking engagements looming large in my calendar later this year, this approach gave me definite food for thought. Mr. Doctorow had a lot to say about the depressing state of media, business and technology, and the various visions that exist about where it might go instead, all of which has been widely covered elsewhere. He didn't say anything I hadn't read about before, but he did give renewed focus and clarity to my frustrations about this stuff. Added to my high-priority reading list: Creative Commons Australia, with plans to pledge my support in the very near future. As any talented speaker will do, however, he put into words a couple of clear concepts that struck home with me. I want to paraphrase them here so I don't forget them:

   • The biggest challenge facing content producers is not piracy, but obscurity. Of all the people who haven't bought my book, the vast majority failed to do so because they hadn't heard of it—not because they downloaded it from a file sharing network.
   • Perhaps conversation is king. The opening words of my book (“Content is king.”) are outdated. This seems clear given the relative values of the telephone and movie industries, and given that any healthy member of society would choose his friends over his record collection to have along if stranded on a desert island. Today's breakout media success stories as often as not seem to be exploiting the audience's desire to ask questions and share opinions about what they have paid to see/hear/do. Thankfully, the rest of my book is not so fragile.

2. Apr 14, 2006 Lost Out Back

   Check out my podcast! It's called Lost Out Back, and my friend John and I have been working on "lost episodes" for a couple of months. It's not perfect, but it's fun. I hope you think so too!

   A podcast about Australia by two unlikely candidates: a geek from the Great White North and a lad from the Emerald Isle.

   Episode two was put up just this week. I think it's way funnier than episode one. A feed is available if you're tech-savvy; if not, I'll put up an email notification option soon so you can catch every episode as it comes out.

3. Apr 12, 2006 Happy Birthday to Me

   How is it that I'm now 28 but those mutant turtles are still teenagers? Sometimes I wish I was a mutant...

4. Apr 11, 2006 Make My Dinner

   I was at a day-long impro workshop on Sunday when someone asked me, "Where's Jess today?" I realized how strange it would sound before I answered. "She's at home making my dinner." Jess and I have been busy people lately, which means we haven't had much time to spice things up. In the kitchen, I mean. Get your mind out of the gutter. Well, with a couple of days off this week, Jess took the initiative and went prowling through a couple of the cookbooks I keep on the shelf (gotta keep up appearances, you know).

5. Apr 11, 2006 Working at Home

   I worked from my bedroom for nearly a year while awaiting the visa that would allow me to move to Australia in 2002. Though the prospect of the two-second commute certainly has its appeal, being 10 hours out of sync with my coworkers and having little reason to get dressed in the morning does not make for the most productive work environment, no matter how cosy and quiet your home office is. After nearly four years of open plan office living, I'm now working from home two days a week again, due to the accoustic requirements of producing video tutorials (a.k.a. screencasts). Thankfully, my home office is now in a separate room (ka-ching -- tax deduction!). Nevertheless, staying productive is proving to be a struggle at times.