Mr. Carr’s argument suggests that throuh years of surfing the web and becoming daily more immersed in the online experience, we have trained our brains to be good at that type of interaction.  Reading an article, we expect lots of links and widgets pulling in and exposing lots of information at one time.  The very activity – “surfing” – expresses the flowing nature which is really good for absorbing a broad range of information at once.  This breadth, however, comes at the cost of depth.  Just as Nicholas describes, we find ourselves leaping from thing to thing without the same kind of focus and dedication as we might with a long news article or chapter of a book.

Conversations come in short chat or text messages, squeezed in between or layered on top of other activities.  At any given time, I have access to huge wealths of information, but not the time or focus to get into any of it.  It takes real work to hone in on the details of anything and we’ve been training ourselves to do be bad at exactly this.  Skimming the surface can be great, but it comes at a cost.  It will be a sad day when generations begin to grow up in a world of hyper-experience, without the grounding of concrete and focused interaction with the world.

NPR Interview with Nicholas Carr

(Source eartheasy.com)

With auto makers such as General Motors hesitant to adopt fuel efficient designs and paying dearly for it,  it’s time to start stepping up to do something about the problem.  Though gas prices have dropped down to a pretty reasonable level, the memory of prices greater than $4.00 a gallon is still all too sharp.  Here are a few things each of us can do to save money at the pump.  They really add up with just a little bit of effort.

Driving Habits:

1. Avoid hard breaking
2. Avoid quick acceleration 
   • Note: 1 and 2 increases travel time by 4% but can decrease consumption by 40% and reduce emissions to 1/5th.
3. Keep moving without coming to a complete stop
4. Drive between 5o and 60 mph when possible for most efficient performance
5. Anticipate stopping and just glide to a stop with less braking – breaking throws away energy
6. User higher gears if you have a choice
7. If stopped for more than 30 seconds, turn off the engine rather than idling
8. Use cruise control for long flat areas, it smooths out acceleration
9. Do not use cruise control in hilly areas
10. At speeds <40mph, crack windows instead of AC, (>10%)
11. At speeds >40mph, close windows
12. Draft behind larger vehicles – semis can’t slow down quickly so less following distance isn’t as dangerous

Car Maintenance:

1. Inflate tires properly
2. Change air filters regularly (clogged filters use 10% more fuel)
3. Change oil regularly (clean oil is more efficient)
4. Tighten gas cap (gas evaporates and escapes)

Trip Planning:

1. Remove unnecessary items from the car
2. Park in the shade to reduce need for AC and fuel evaporation
3. Use a block heater in the winter since fuel is more efficient when warmed up
4. Combine trips and errands
5. Telecommute when possible
6. Carpool or use mass transit
7. When choosing a route, avoid traffic, hills and construction
8. If you have a choice about when to go out, save driving for non-windy days

As an option, though, what about implementing a ‘connectivity-free zone’ now and then to step back and consider the broad scope of a project, a relationship, an important decision, or life itself? Camping for a day, or even taking a day trip by bike without phone, iPod, email or so much as a newspaper might do the trick. Life these days is overwhelmed by the continuous flow of information.

The never-ending barrage is draining and we need ways to turn it off, recognizing and remembering that the world will be okay without us for awhile, and us without it.

In order to catch these valuable bits, I use a modified to-do list.  I keep an email draft in my Gmail inbox and a notepad document up on the screen which together contain anything interesting I’ve encountered and have yet to process.

Say I’m reading a post about books and there are links to a good author.  I haven’t finished the first post yet so jumping in a new direction or opening a new tab in the background would leave me scattered.  I add the author’s name and a link to the book to my ‘buffer’ and finish where I was at. When I’ve got time, I can work through things on this list which aren’t dreaded tasks.  I perceive them as anticipated points of interest.

The list grows and shrinks according to my level of busyness but higher-priority items get picked off first and those that in hindsight don’t really matter can get periodically bumped off and out of the way.  So far, it’s been fantastic way to reign in my easily distracted mind to actually finish things in some semblance of order.

For example:

Blog posts

-10,000 year clock

-Map guy

-Photosynth of inauguration

-Post portfolio pieces

-Prairie Home Companion Streaming

-Books

-Buffer

guitar hero songs

research jboss

contribute to mediawiki

open filer

FreeNAS

pfSense

try systemBoot Disk

Pound – http load balancer

Ruby on rails with Bear

Ruby on rails book

try clonezilla disc

shorting stock

technology singularity

PKAL work  - images as headers, image upload issue

Try out OpenMeetings

Try out CloudVPN