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We talked with panelist Chis Messina and got the low down on how to do Open Social Web right.
As a n00b, what do I need to know about making my social media experience more streamlined and less frustrating?
Chis Messina: We don't have a great solution to that yet largely because not only are we in the early stages of this... we haven't yet adopted a mechanism that allows us to express activities in a general way that allows us to filter those things. For example, if I want to subscribe to my friend's photos, I shouldn't have to subscribe to them on a per instance basis. It should be these are my friends and I want to see their photos, period. But because each site spits out data in a different way, the aggregators have to spend more time supporting each one.
While we thank our lucky stars that rumors of a rampant April Fools converge virus turned out to be just that, we feel even luckier to be in San Francisco learning the ins and outs of the social Web at O'Reilly Media's Web 2.0 conference. Coining the term in 2005, Tim O'Reilly's Web 2.0 has been around just as long as the concept of a "social Web" and can be likened to a more meaty, less whiskey-, and pizza-soaked SXSW. (This being SF, conference devotees can grab ginger martinis and a snack at French bistro Annabelle's across the street.)
With the current socioeconomic climate, this year's Expo theme is "less is more" and conference chair Jen Palkha expertly underscored the need in 2009 to pare down both our business model and the way we live our lives; the best thing about this year's Web 2.0 is that it gives "the opportunity to focus on a different view of how to achieve our goals."
On Wednesday morning around 9 a.m., Taraval Station Capt. Paul Chignell and five other officers conducted a sting operation targeting drivers who failed to stop for "pedestrians" at the intersection of Sloat Boulevard and Everglade Drive.
The wide crosswalk, clearly marked with highlighter yellow signs, largely goes ignored or unnoticed by cars traveling the busy, eight-lane street. "If you stay here long enough, you'll see something egregious," said Chignell Wednesday morning. He had just crossed Sloat, and a red Toyota that had driven in his path was being pulled over by a motorcycle cop.
promising at first, but remember this is San Francisco, so you can
shave a good 8% to 10% off the competition right there. Be advised that
women here are the cream of the brain trust -- San Francisco was named
one of the top 10 smartest cities by Forbes last year -- so the kind of 'hey baby' come-on that works in L.A. or Miami Beach ain't gonna work here."
Remember, this is San Francisco! WINK! WINK! Gay males live here! And the most important thing about our gay male population is that they don't hit on women that straight men could be sleeping with. At least, that's the message I took away from Milk. Also, our women are totally smart, according to the scientists at Forbes, not like the addlepated floozies flipping their hair populating the streets of L.A. and Miami. Oddly enough, "stupid girls" was not one of the selling points for either of those cities, both of which made the list. In fact, Los Angeles, which ranked No. 19, is billed as attracting, "...many beautiful, intelligent and most importantly single women from all parts of the country." Huh.
Oh yes, and if you need a "night away from the ladies" while in SF, you can go to a jazz club, cigar, or scotch bar. Because when women listen to jazz it sounds like the high keening of an angry whale and scotch turns to sand in our mouths.
Readers of askmen.com: Don't move here. Really. You'll hate it.
Why, progressives? Why?
What is it about earnest communities of activists that kills laughter? Could it be that after years of using phrases like "I evoke my politicized sexuality to help liberate Palestine!" and "it's all connected to PG&E somehow!" with a straight face, the capacity to recognize humor dies? I don't know: But I do know that this week's Guardian left me scratching my head, thinking "This is the best they could do?"
You really couldn't come up with any better material on SF Weekly? Really?
C'mon, guys: Try harder. You can do this. Here's a sample of what people who use humor recreationally might have said about us.
• SF Weekly is hugely wasteful, accounting for a full 57 percent of San Francisco's use of irony.
• You know why the economic crash hit Village Voice Media so hard? Because they won't allow their accountants to endorse any stocks.
• OK, SF Weekly, we admit it: you wrote about Snuggies before we did. Damn, you're good.
• SF Weekly's losing so much money they're going to start charging for "Sucka Free City." It will now be called "Sucka Subscription Content."
• Fun fact: The stick up Matt Smith's ass was hand-carved by Ohio Mennonites.
• Oh look, yet another long narrative focusing on a larger social issue through the microcosm of one person's experience. How quaint.
• This week Village Voice Media announced a new editorial strategy: Work Joe Eskenazi to death.
• Hey Katy St. Clair -- how about actually REVIEWING a bar?
"The accumulation of head injuries, clearly the first injury being the most severe, has affected Ed's functioning in the world," reads Hanlon's legal filing. "His social naivete and exuberance likely endeared him to people initially, helping him to become supervisor, but ultimately contributed to his downfall when more prudent judgment and impulse control were necessary."
Boy, it really makes you wonder what lurking childhood traumas are plaguing the current crop of supervisors. There's a medical school dissertation to be had in Chris Daly alone.with Stromberg downdraft carburetor, can go from zero to 100 kilometers
an hour in 12.5 seconds. And I even like the color." -- The Sultan, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Sometimes, as the above quote denotes, you really can find everything you want in a car. So, either the contractor or landscaper who picked up the above well-worn Ford F-250 pickup was thrilled to stoke his secret desires and discover such a vehicle in the counter-intuitive Pepto hue or, paraphrasing Shakespeare, figured that an F-250 of any color will still haul just as sweet.
Incidentally, the No. 1 Google page for the search "pink pickup truck" is here, a CNN story from 2003 about Iraqi troops surrendering while motoring about in a pink pickup -- with a mounted machine gun in the bed (one supposes that anyone driving a pink pickup through the Fertile Crescent had better put a gun in the back to compensate).
It may be chauvinistic, but I'll take the plunge: Our pink truck is cuter than theirs.
to be collaborating in their calling," Bland said. "Individuals
near each other seem to adjust their frequency, or pitch, to an approximate
common value. Like a choir improvising, the group's pitch swings substantially
over several hours with the individual fish following the swings, indicating
that they are listening to each other and responding."
"Toadfish," incidentally, would make a great name for a band.
Using what an SFSU periodical describes as "complex physics equations" -- as if the field of physics is replete with simple equations -- Bland plans on analyzing the toadfish songs, and studying why communities of the fish sing at different pitches than those a few blocks over.
Listen to the song of the toadfish here.
