This site has been deprecated. You will be able to find all my posts at the new address: chadkohalyk.com/blog. Rather than linking to an article here, please link to it there for the integrity of the internets. I am still aggregating my posts here via a Link so that you may Like them if you like. Thank you! — Chad Kohalyk

Information Fast

The pledge:

For the month of September I pledge to limit my media consumption. This means no Twitter, Google+, Path, Tumblr, Hacker News, Popurls , Intigi or Zite. It means no Apple blogs. It means no football podcasts or watching MOTD. I am limiting myself to 1 of each of the following sources:

  • 1 Non-fiction book at a time
  • 1 Fiction book at a time
  • 1 Social network for interaction (App.net)
  • 1 Podcast per week (The Incomparable, approx. 1hr)
  • The occasional movie

My goal is to throttle my media consumption to:

  1. Find out what media sources are truly valuable to me; and
  2. Gain more time to think.

The result will hopefully be more blogging of original material.

@replies only

One caveat I reserve is to check mentions from social networks. I do not have comments on my blog and garner reactions from my posts on Twitter and Google+. I get notified when I am mentioned and I pledge to only check these mentions, and not to wander down the ratholes of other people’s conversations.

Time to think (revisited)

Harjj Taggar removed email from his iPhone. Some choice quotes:

Having time to think is precious to me and it’s also incredibly important if you want to achieve anything close to original thought. … Once I realized the power of this I went on to delete more than just email. Facebook, Twitter and Quora apps have all been removed (for me Twitter has been the one I’ve missed the most). It’s been the best decision I’ve made this year and would highly recommend it.

I was just talking about this with @scdaustin, telling him about my idea about having a social media free week. My concern was my lack of reading books. I spend all day reading Twitter, Google+, App.net, Tumblr, Popurls, Hacker News, Zite and Intigi… it isn’t like I am not reading anything. Furthermore, I had to up my Reading Challenge 2012 on Goodreads from 30 to 40 books. But it is all an illusion… most of my “reading” is done with audiobooks. For books you want to get really deep into and annotate, you need text.

Almost exactly four years ago I had a similar realization

I learned how to increase web consumption efficiency by using (hundreds of) RSS feeds. I turned my “downtime” into “productive” time by listening to lectures, audiobooks and podcasts while doing chores, commuting, etc. Everywhere I went I had my iPod plugged in. I thought I was learning when I was actually just consuming. I was so effective at packing each minute of each day full of articles and books that I squeezed out any quiet time just to sit and think.

How am I to come to terms with my overconsumption? Why… read another book of course! Check out Clay Johnson’s The Information Diet:

So, I think rather than simply auditing my social networks, I should pause them all for a bit and spend time thinking about my consumption habits so that I may recover more time to think.

Some thoughts on the potential Twitter exodus

A friend has abandoned Twitter. He is pretty early, but I suspect he is at the front of a potentially huge geek wave.

I know what it is like to leave a platform. It can be tough, but there are a plethora of communication tools for the Internet. I moved to Twitter as my main conduit, but have always signed up for social networking alternatives (the latest being App.net), searching for the “perfect” app. Part of the definition of that includes federation and interoperability with other platforms. I tried Diaspora* and even called for the federation of Facebook. The solution still eludes us.

I’ve been watching Twitter’s latest moves in the chase for a business strategy with growing concern. Unlike David, I don’t use Twitter exclusively as a broadcast medium. Interaction with friends, internet acquaintances and (internet) celebrities make the platform valuable enough to me to stick around.

The search for the perfect internet communications tool is still ongoing. Status and location updates, sharing short and long bits of text, cloud-like accessibility but retaining ownership and portability… We geeks want to have our cake and eat it too. For most people Email and Facebook are sufficiently easy to manage. Like a landline telephone and snail mail. But the internet can do so much more. Whatever that “so much more” thing is, it’s that which we geeks are waiting for.

With the rise of potential contenders such as App.net, Tent.io, Medium, Branch etc it is pretty obvious that the killer communications platform has not been found yet. Or, the killer combination of platforms at any rate.

Twitter was once the domain of geeks. That is no longer. So we move on. It might be sad, but overall it is a good thing. It means we are pushing for more discovery. I can’t wait to see what new ground we break.

Steven B Johnson's new book on the internet and politics

I have read a number of his works, including Emergence:

And so, over time, a book I had written about social insects and video games and software algorithms started to feel more and more like a book about politics…

I look forward to this book and hope it goes beyond the aspect of political organization via the web. My own personal politics have been informed and transformed thanks to the internet, and my experience mirrors his observation:

The funny thing about this new movement was that it didn’t readily fit the categories of either political party in the US.

The internet and living abroad have definitely given me a more nuanced view of politics. I have added Future Perfect to my To Read list.

Profile of a hustler: Instantbight.com

David Silverman is the blogger behind instantbight.com, popularized recently for his simple 5 Question Interviews of technorati. Looking at the list you might recognize some people that I mention from time to time: Horace Dediu, Craig Mod, Ethan Marcotte and Dan Adams for example. David has been publishing these short interviews about one a day since mid-April. It is a pretty ambitious project by a guy with some inspirational initiative.

Did I mention he is in Grade 8?

I reached out to David and we decided to interview one another (here’s mine). Below are my 5 Questions to him. If you want to learn more about David , I recommend you check out his interview with Apple pundit Philip Elmer-DeWitt (one of his first interviewees) for CNN. There you can learn more about why he started the site and the story behind the name of his blog.

Instantbight.com logo

Q. After 3 months, how much feedback are you getting from your interviews nowadays?

Nowadays I get an average of 350 views daily. When I have a very high-profile person doing an interview with me I get upwards of 500. On the day that the CNN Money Article came out, I got around 4,000 views which was insane. All of the comments, and feedback have been positive and very helpful! I love all of my readers, and would love to talk to anyone who wants to talk to me.

Q. What interests you most about the tech world right now?

I find the tech world fascinating for a bunch of reasons. For one I am really an Apple fanboy so all of their product announces and presentations captivate me from the first signs on the rumor mills. Another reason I like the tech world is for it’s attitude. Everyone I have interviewed is so passionate and enthusiastic about their work. I really am excited about the world I am coming into and can’t wait to really get involved.

Q. Which is better and why: work for a big company like Apple or Google someday or have your own startup?

That is an amazing question. I think that if I was every offered a real, “high-up” position in Apple I would take it in a mili-second. I would not want to work for Google, at all, but I won’t get into that now. I would also really like to start my on business. I really like starting things, and leading a team.I feel that I am pretty creative so I would like to make a company that would really wow the tech world. Who knows maybe in a few years, there will be an instantbight inc.

Q. Do you have a business or product idea in mind?

For a long time before instantbight.com, I was thinking of investing time in starting a social network solely for kids ages 10-18. The network would be very entrepreneurially minded, and the focus would be on collaborating with other kids on possible business ideas. I think that kids have an edge that adults don’t on making great ideas and businesses. I would still love to do it now, so if anybody reading this is interested…let me know!

Q. What are your favourite podcasts?

I love The Critical Path with Horace Dediu. He is maybe the smartest guy I know and is so articulate. Every single one of his shows keeps my focus(which is tough with my teenage attention span.). I love how he gives real, cold, hard facts for all of his statements. I also really liked The Talk Show with John Gruber before, he broke up with Dan Benjamin. I am still not sure what that’s all about but I loved the show when they were together. Very funny.

Replacing Flickr

Chad on www.flickr.com



Yahoo’s lack of innovation is one thing, but what really drives me bonkers about Flickr is the terrible video support. Maybe 1 in 10 of my video uploads are successful. I take a lot of short vids on my iPhone and even on my 60D I think they should be viewed within context, alongside the still photos that were taken at the same time. Isn’t that the whole point of having video capability on your digital camera? To enhance the still photo viewing experience with sound and motion? The video problem became so frustrating that I have begun the hunt for a Flickr replacement.

Read More

Social Network Audit

After posting my Google+ rant on Google+ I thought more about what kinds of social networking services I use, and how many I have abandoned in the past. I put them all together in the graphic above, separated into three groups (from top to bottom): Currently using (frequency from Left to Right); Infrastructure and Deadpool.

Current

Twitter is my most used network. Tumblr powers my blog. I upload to Flickr often, where I share private photos & vids of my babies with friends and family. I use Zite for social news (I used Summify before it got acquired, Percolate and News.Me never worked out). I keep up with a lot of stuff through Twitter or podcasts. The next set of SNSs are for tracking: books, movies, music, bookmarks and locations/food/meetings (Path). Then there are a couple for pure entertainment. Finally, there are the functional networks (and Google+).

Infrastructure

These are basically the services that I use without really knowing it. Flavors powers my site. I do upload the occasional video to Vimeo, but mostly it is used for viewing vids that people share to me. YouTube is exclusively for watching. IMDB is now used just for reference (I log all the films I watch with Letterboxd). Gravatar and Disqus are useful social utilities.

Deadpool

Some of these I tried and disliked, some lost out to competitors higher up in the graphic, and the rest are great but I trimmed to simplify my social networking life. As you can see, a number of services have fallen by the wayside.

Believe it or not, I have been trying to cut down on my digital attention deficit disorder. I have been pretty successful with iPhone apps. One obvious way to cut down on the number of SNSs I use is to use Facebook with a number of apps. But… still too creepy for me.

Two networks on which I have accounts but remain undecided are 500px and Diaspora. I have flirted with the former simply out of frustration with Yahoo’s lack of vision for Flickr; the latter I joined during the whole Facebook revolution of 2010. I shelved it when Google+ came out, but I am thinking about taking a look at it again. It looks like they have come a long way.

It is a valuable exercise to periodically audit different aspects of your life, and simplify where you can. Obviously “simplification” is a relative term, but it is something we can all strive for, and can lead to more happiness. To make this blog post even more pretentious, I will end with a video from an inspiring TED talk entitled Less stuff, more happiness.

Warner Bros: You are doing it wrong

The wife got me the Harry Potter: The Complete 8-Film Collection boxed (17 discs) set for our anniversary. Yes, well, she got me Lord of the Rings for another anniversary, so it is already well established that she married a total geek. Besides, it is a great present and I hope to enjoy all of the films and books with both of my daughters. I know it is only DVD, but I don’t own a BluRay player, and I do everything digital anyways. So I was excited to see that the boxed set included digital downloads! But not so fast… Take a look at this fine print:

DIGITAL COPY: Includes Standard Definition Digital Copy™ of the film with the purchase of this disc. Special Features not included. … Not compatible with iTunes or with Macintosh and iPod devices. Consumer must reside in Japan and have a broadband internet connection and a DVD-ROM drive. * Mobile Requirements: Digital copy access on mobile phones limited to supported phones using Docomo as a mobile service provider. … PC Requirements: Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or later or Windows® Vista or Windows® 7, Internet Explorer® 6.0 or above. Windows Media® Player most recent version, Adobe® Flash® Player most recent version, and Adobe® AIR™ most recent version.

Boy, that last couple of lines is packed full of exciting software that I want to install on my computer [/sarcasm].

Anyways I only have my MacBook Air here in Japan so with no disc drive it doesn’t look like I will be able to get any of the digital versions. Besides, when you go to Warner on Demand Digital copy website there are a number of other restrictions including:

※Digital CopyのダウンロードはInternet Explorerで行ってください。他のブラウザでは正常にライセンスが発行できませんので、ご了承ください。

Yes, digital downloads require Internet Explorer. Apparently they cannot license [the content properly through] other browers thank you for your understanding. (#bullshit)

I know it has all been said before. Hollywood needs to be disrupted, and not just the distribution part of the business. This is such a terrible, terrible experience. I am glad there are alternatives, but it is a sad way to treat paying customers.

mashable:

“Because the biggest producers of content on the Internet are not Google and Yahoo — they’re us – we’re the ones getting policed. The real threat to the enactment of PIPA and SOPA is our ability to share things with one another.”

-Clay Shirky, in his “emergency” TED talk about SOPA and why it would create a “consumption-only Internet.”

b-mobile fail

I have a had a really tough time in Japan so far. Free WiFi in Kyoto is nearly non-existent. The choppy Shijo network is my only oasis, and it is pretty grimy. Being disconnected from the web tough as someone who is a trying to start a web business, does a podcast on the side, and is trying to keep in touch with everyone in general via Twitter and Flickr.

Thus I was excited when my b-mobile SIM card with unlimited tethering capability arrived yesterday. w00t! Unfortunately, it sucks. Only 0.12MBps up and 0.06MBps down. The latency is so bad I can’t even download the slew of excellent 5by5 podcasts I am missing.

Needless to say, I did the 21st century slacktivist thing and complained via tweet. When I looked at b-mobile’s twitter feed it looks like I am not the only one. Seems they are having all sorts of trouble with Docomo. Good news though! They will have it fixed “within the month”(!?). WTF. Even worse, turns out they have a 360MB cap over three days!

Looks like it is off to EMOBILE this afternoon. Is “E” better than “B” because it comes later in the alphabet?

MLS FAIL: A tale of two many plugins

I wanted to hear MLS Commissioner Don Barber speak about BC Place but I ended up getting a terribly unhelpful message to install Flash, with no fall back. Not very good design at all. So I fired up Chrome to watch the video only to be denied again! A plugin inside of another plugin?! I thought they were just careless in their disregard for UX, now I see they are deliberate in their attempts to make torture users. The truly funny (terrible?) thing is, all of these videos are available through their iPhone app! They already have created h.264 fallback content but are not using it!