A professor stood before his Philosophy 201 class and had some items in front of him.

When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full.

They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar He shook the jar lightly.

The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full.

They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.

Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

He asked once more if the jar was full.

The students responded with a unanimous ‘yes.’

The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.

The students laughed.

‘Now,’ said the professor as the laughter subsided, ‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things—your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions—and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.

The sand is everything else—the small stuff.

‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ he continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or golf balls.

The same goes for life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.  

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.

Spend time with your children.

Spend time with your parents.

Visit with grandparents.

Take time to get medical checkups.

Take your spouse out to dinner.

Practice “romance” as often as possible.

There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.

Take care of “Mama” first—the things that really matter.

Set your priorities..

The rest is just sand.

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented.

The professor smiled and said, ‘I’m glad you asked.’

The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.

This prompted a series of thoughts and decisions that lead me down the path to taking a break from it all. I had all of my passwords (at least to the sites in question) changed so that I don’t know any of them and, therefore, can’t get in and feed this addiction. It’s a bit drastic, I know, but I think it will be a very helpful change for a variety of reasons.

First, by disabling my access, I am now forced to fill my time with other, more productive, exercises. By creating this void in my time usage, I anticipated that I would force myself to focus more attentively on whatever task I had at hand. Such was not initially the case. Rather than being able to focus on a particular proposal, for example, I have found myself distracted by thoughts such as “I wonder what so and so is up to…I’ll just look them up on FaceBook…oh…wait…I can’t…” and so on.

One such example, to be very specific, happened last night. I was at a party with friends and we were, as to be expected, having a wonderful time in making nonsense and jokes. I snapped a picture with my phone and proclaimed “I’ll post this to FaceBook right away and tag you both in it!” before I realized that I couldn’t actually do so. Seconds later, after realizing my mistake, I informed them that I couldn’t as I am currently on a “break” from these time-wasters.

Surprisingly, this comment was received with enthusiasm and support. One of the three people involved in the conversation, my roommate from freshman year and trusted confidante–Tom, expressed that my decision was brilliant, saying that “that is a smart thing to do” and stating that FaceBook serves very few purposes, chiefly among them: wasting time. By no means is Tom an expert on productivity or achievement of goals; but, he still realized the wisdom in my decision and that there is true value in re-evaluating the importance of these “services” we so rely upon.

Also, I have found that I frequently think to myself “quick! let me twitter this thought I’m having…” but then realize that to do that would be both breaking my principled abstinence and giving in to my ingrained addiction. This, truthfully, has been an awakening experience. Simply sitting on the bus, riding downtown has changed from a time to be filled with means of entertainment to a situation that requires real, social interaction or, if nobody seems open to engagement, introspection. This fascinates me.

This is the first part of an ongoing series based around my new and developing opinions on social networking. I wrote this about 36 hours after initiating the self-imposed blackout. In the future, look for some more insights.

And with that, I give you the contents of an email (reformatted from a horrendous waste of space) that was forwarded to me by my father. If I knew the original author, I’d say so…but I don’t.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all tencomes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. ‘Since you are all such good customers, he said, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.’

Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings). The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings). The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings). The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings). The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings). The tenth now paid $50 instead of $59 (15% savings). Each of the six was better off than before.

And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

‘I only got a dollar out of the $20,’ declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, ‘but he got $9!’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man.

‘I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got nine times morethan I!’

‘That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man.

‘Why should he get $9 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!’

‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison. ‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor.’

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important: they didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists, and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore.

In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

Finally, I decided that this is a website about me — though not as obvious as this: Will Gotshall-Maxon Official Internet Presence — and I’m going to write about things that are technological, productivity, or personal in nature. So here goes. Look for more soon. Reinvention #5.

The following is a series of instructions that I gathered from various places on the web and in my mind. What I’ve wanted for a while is a seamlessly synchronized Documents folder. I don’t want another special folder or drive onto which I have to put things that are to be distributed. What I wanted is for the default location for all of my saved documents to be copied on all of the computers that I regularly use.

Here’s what I did. Please note that I used a Mobile Me account. One of the really great things about Mobile Me and it’s OS integration is that there is always a local copy. In using a vanilla WebDAV setup, one would have to be connected or sacrifice the ability to open existing documents or save to this centralized repository.

• Move everything from the ~/Documents folder. If the target will be a MobileMe iDisk, why not move it there now?

  In Terminal.app

• sudo rm -rf ~/Documents [hit return]
• type your password and hit return
• ln -s /Volumes/[iDisk name]/Documents ~/Documents

  In Finder

• Go -> Go To Folder
• “/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources”
• Find “ToolbarDocumentsFolderIcon.icns” and open it (Preview.app is the default)
• Select All & Copy

  Optional 1: Change the icon so that it looks like the original documents folder.

• Find the new Documents alias (in your user’s folder).
• Edit -> Get Info
• Select the icon (top, left corner)
• Paste

  Optional 2: Remove those annoying arrows on aliases.

• cd /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources
• sudo mv AliasBadgeIcon.icns OldAliasBadgeIcon.icns
• Create your own icon and use it to mark aliases by naming it “AliasBadgeIcon.icns” and putting it in the directory mentioned two steps ago.

Also of Note: This won’t work on any non-Mac platform. I have drawn the line and hopped over it. I’ll use a Windows computer when I need to, but the frequency of actually needing a Windows box (i.e., not VMWare or CrossOver) is rapidly approaching never.

Here is one side of an emerging conversation that I’m having with a friend. The subject, as becomes apparent, is the prevalence of Social Networking sites. The response that I crafted (below) was prompted by the question, “where are you? what services are out there that I should be on?”

Enjoy.

Will

ough question to answer. I am invited to (and try out) a lot of social network type sites. Rarely, though, do they reach enough audience to make it worth my while.

That being said, I do find my way around a few.

LinkedIn – professionals
Facebook – friends, sometimes colleagues
Twitter – the geeks, realistically
Seesmic – like twitter, but video

Some others find their way in and out. I still have a MySpace for example. Rarely do I find that I login to check it out. Too much spam and not enough quality content.

The thing that I really like about twitter are the replies. Facebook has seen this and has recently added their own sort of reply mechanism. It still isn’t the same. Seesmic is very similar to twitter with regard to structure and design. The problem is that the whole thing is really video-based and, therefore, somewhat difficult for most people to really accept.

Pownce lacks the draw that twitter has. Aside from file sharing, there aren’t any features that it has above twitter. I love Kevin Rose, but it really was a day late and a dollar short. Kevin proved it himself when he started promoting his twitter account publicly while basically ignoring his own service.

BrightKite interests me a bit. I haven’t had enough time to really dig deeper, though. Maybe it’ll happen. Don’t quite know yet.

Something that’s apparently important to me is that the service initiate and support some sort of conversation. Really, that is what socializing is about. What good is a social network that makes it difficult to converse or becomes basically a one-way mechanism for self promotion (one of the bases for my dislike of MySpace). Of course, there are some people who use Twitter and others for self promotion (twitter.com/tferriss) but they really miss the point. (I say this knowing and quite enjoying Tim’s ideas…still, it’s the truth).

Those are just some thoughts though. Everything changes and morphs over time so my position is bound to do the same.

The Background: Ithaca College has a section on the ithaca.edu site specifically dedicated to college news and announcements called Intercom. There’s an RSS feed (of course) and there’s some sort of CMS on the backend — though I can’t seem to pinpoint what it is without a little looking around — which is updated by various folks at random intervals.

What I wanted was a breaking-news style site, not a feed, that I could forward anywhere and that would be current (within a few minutes) with the site. Finally, I didn’t want this to cost anything or take any of my time (on a day-to-day basis) for setup or maintenance. Using a few different services (most of which I have already been using for other, various purposes) I was able to make this happen in under an hour.

Naturally, the Google helped me to find some tutorials that were of assistance. Though, I found, most of them were very specialized for things that I didn’t really want to do. Others were focused on setting up plug-ins for existing sites (I have no ownership of the site, no access to the CMS, and a high level of doubt as to whether or not they would install such a plug-in and support my geeky wants). That being the case, I was still able to get enough out of each of these independent sources as to figure out a solution that would work for me.

Services Used: Twitter (of course), TwitterFeed (and, as required OpenID), FeedBurner (not 100% necessary, but good for tracking), WordPress (with the FeedWordPress plug-in)

The Problem: I ran into an error when using the TwitterFeed service by itself. Initially, I was going to go the easy route and have TwitterFeed handle everything. However, for what ever reason, the feed coming from Intercom doesn’t have valid time/date information and, therefore, wouldn’t work to be pushed-out in a reasonable way.

The Solution: is probably much more complex than it needed to be. It works, though, and should provide some degree of expandability. What I did is, essentially, setup a WordPress weblog that mirrors Intercom (or any site, really, using the FeedWordPress plug-in) and (to fix the problem with time/date) keeps a local copy of the Title and Permalink back to the original Intercom story (the only two things I want in the Twitter updates). Of course, the output feed from this WordPress weblog (which is private, by the way) goes through FeedBurner, then TwitterFeed and gets the Title and Link in the Twitter status updates.

Pretty Slick, huh!?

As an aside, I’ve got lots to talk about here, just not enough time to write it all down and make it sound somewhat logical…I try anyway… Hopefully, my plan of carving out designated time slots will work and you’ll be hearing from me in less than a few months.

Rather than simply a source of entertainment, I have discovered a plethora of undiscovered talent that have put themselves on YouTube. Perhaps their hopes are to be discovered by an A&R representative with some downtime who might happen across their page. I don’t really know the justification for their postings, I can only try to figure it out.

To be honest, I don’t really know where I am going with this thought. Perhaps nowhere, perhaps somewhere totally radical. Let me digress for a few paragraphs and perhaps come back with an intellectually stimulating thought.

I was browsing, clicking from one video to another when I came across (I haven’t a clue how) an amazing guitarist. As I listened to the music in the background (strangely, I rarely watch the videos as much as I listen) I was struck with awe as to the performance this man put on. After viewing it later, I am even more impressed by this artist. Have a look…

Isn’t that incredible? So, after watching/listening to his video, I googled him, found his website, wikipedia entry, and recordings. Where is this going? Again, I’m not sure. I just find it incredible that, by browsing through videos of drunken rednecks talking about beer, diet coke & mentos, and liquid nitrogen, I found this incredible musician. Subsequently, I have purchased a copy of his CD, Deviations and am currently typing to it.

As for an intellectually stimulating thought, I can’t really come up with one right now… but I do think that the music speaks for itself. Until I can refresh my brain, have a listen…

I would really love to devote more time to this blog. Sadly, though, I have finals this week and a large amount of work to do for project-based finals. Therefore, I wouldn’t expect to see much here. I’ve got some seriously good posts that are in draft-stage and might be able to get one or two out this week.

UPDATE: I have decided that I can devote an hour or so on Tuesday and Thursday to blogging. Expect to see some radical stuff then and more coming at you this weekend and next week when I’ll be starting my full-time position as Assistant System Administrator.

Stay Tuned.

Will

Of course, everybody’s criteria is slightly different, with more priority given to certain areas and less to others, the exact science is anything but exact. In order to help, though, and not just cause confusion, I’ll explain my criteria for selection in the hopes that you can reevaluate yours and possibly come out with a better solution (or, perhaps a first solution).

Navigation
The interface, simply, is the biggest factor in making or breaking an aggregator. Most layouts that I have seen in the syndication world mimic those of email clients. While I think it’s nice that they do such a thing to minimize the learning curve, I’d rather have a killer interface that let me navigate between feeds and articles with minimal interference. Keyboard shortcuts, naturally, are a must and are even nicer when only one key is required for browsing.

Synchronization
Having a number of computers–Mac, Windows, Linux, and Solaris–I need an aggregator that can accommodate at least Mac and Windows (I never travel with a Solaris machine and rarely with Linux). Because I have a number of computers–and don’t always read feeds on the same one–I want something that can synchronize multiple machines. While this synchronization capability was something that I eventually had to give up for the time being, it was quite important in my evaluations.

Speed
I know that this sounds somewhat intuitive, but I can’t stand waiting for articles to load, feeds to be refreshed, or any of that downtime. Instead, I want an aggregator that sync’s frequently (and without bringing my system to a grinding halt) and can load an article within milliseconds of its selection. This alone skimmed out most of the online services, though not all, as the interfaces didn’t allow enough speed and left me spending too much time waiting to read articles.

Export/Import
I tend to switch around from service to service. That being the case, I really dig when one service provides a feature that lets me Import and Export OPML files. An OPML file, for those who wonder, is an outline (hence the real name, Outline Processor Markup Language) of the feeds to which you subscribe. The OPML file contains the names and URI’s for the feeds and provides a way to backup our subscriptions and/or migrate them from one place to another.

Sharing (Email, Link Blogs, et cetera)
Again, something that you may never use or even consider is the capability to share articles. I tend to read through my feeds rather quickly and pick out articles that look interesting based on the title and the first few sentences. If it catches my attention, I post it to my link blog. If the article strikes me as something that would interest a friend, family member, or colleague, I might email it to them with that functionality. After I finish going through my feeds this way, I pop over to my own link blog. Having posted the interesting articles to that, I spend about the same amount of time going through those 15-30 articles as I’ve spent on the 300 or so feeds.

Read on for my conclusion…and my final aggregator choice…

I ended up choosing Google’s Reader. I know, I know…it doesn’t synchronize with anything, it’s slow (web service and all) and it doesn’t align perfectly.

To tell the truth, nothing got me saying, “wow, that’s exactly what I want” so I took the best I could get. Apparently, the good folks at Google just released an API for Reader so Synchronization should be right around the bend (I’ll let you developers get going on that).

Additionally, the sharing features that Google incorporates are incredible. I have other services enabled from Google (e.g., Mail, iGoogle, et cetera…) and find that the integration is phenomenal. I send articles to my parents and friends frequently and the GMail integration is seamless. The link blog is built in to the service too.

Yeah, I could be happier, but I am currently satisfied in my choice…though I will probably re-evaluate in a couple of months when the technology has evolved some more. Until then, keep me informed of your criterion, aggregator choices, all the good stuff…

The specific nature of what we’ve been creating doesn’t align perfectly to the capabilities of a wiki. We have been writing field guides and documenting our research (and the progress of it) on a pair of wiki’s (one “process” wiki and one “product” wiki). The primary reason that the professor chose to use a wiki is that he wanted the research aspect to be shared.

As there are a number of different sections of the class (I think two, but it could be more) the potential for overlapping field guides is pretty high. Taking into account the demographics (?) of the people who are in the class, it becomes pretty clear that there is a use to having the research shared. Some of the most popular subjects pertain to sports and music and, for that reason, the resource pages that people find are incredibly useful for people who are researching topics that are in some regards similar.

I think it’s interesting that a teacher is embracing the very technology that so many librarians loathe. In fact, when we were meeting with the research librarians (for a couple sessions, very useful people by the way…) the whole Wikipedia controversy (regarding how useful and accurate it is when putting together a field guide) began to come up. Naturally the librarian (who depends on print encyclopedias and pay-for services to feed himself) was very against our heavy use of the internet and specifically Wikipedia.

Though I am somewhat on the fence about the full usability of Wikipedia, I think that it provides an excellent starting point for people to find information about a wide variety of subjects. I also think that it provides a resource for people who can’t necessarily get to a library that has a 20+ volume set of books that might have what they are looking for somewhere in the thousands of pages. While I would be hesitant to base a large portion of my research upon my findings in Wikipedia, I would not know the basics without it. Additionally, I find quite often that the citation links provide the best information (as well as the “see also” and “external links”).