Blog Geek: Me, but making money

To prove just how small of a world we're in, not only is there another Travis Poling walking the streets (actually there are nine of us on Facebook), at least one of them is also a blogger, but this time it's for real. He's a journalist in San Antonio and has his own blog called Beer Notes hosted by San Antonio Express-News. This could have been me, had I completed culinary school, back when I was more of a connoisseur of those sorts of things.

Blog Geek: fun with tags

Here's the tag cloud for this blog, with all the keywords and tags as of this moment. Wordle can transform your delicious feed or blog into snazzy looking clouds, but the downside is you can't click through to see all the content that match the word "function" or "cat." It's just an image, but it's still tons of fun. The coolest part was being able to cycle through a whole mess of fonts and color combinations before I came upon this one.

Another function I didn't try was to enter simply text into a box and see what comes out. Make sure it's got some fun words if you try it. Link to your cloud in the comments so we can all admire the wonder that is Wordle.



Via Chris

Webscurity: Family is Dynamite

I made it onto my brother's blog, a Webscurity of its own. Life is Dynamite: Family is Dynamite

Webscurity: hardening software, Loss Cat

Apparently I've coined a new term, webscurities--obscure things on the Web. Or not. When I Googled the word, all I got back was a company named webScurity, Inc. that makes a Web sEcurity program. Either they can't spell, or wanted to create a Webscurity themselves. They describe themselves this way:

webScurity was the first to offer affordable Web server hardening software.

Now that just sounds obscure!

I happened to think of the word after discovering, through a very circuitous path, the sad story of Loss Cat, a lost feline named Speckles made famous by a flyer that you have to see to believe.

In honor of Loss Cat, check out some stuff people found, and some vernacular photography.

Blog Geek: The blogs of DemCon

I found it harder to resist watching the Democratic National Convention (see the event blog) this time around, since I'm actually interested in the candidate--which doesn't happen very often.

I'm listening to NPR while I'm in the kitchen, and watching PBS (see the Reporter's blog) while I'm in the living room, or when something takes place I want to see.

I'm still behind the times with a dial-up ISP, so it's a little difficult to follow the liveblogging that's going on. What I've been able to see on the blogosphere is fascinating. I never really dove into the political blog world, so I'm still learning things like the most up-to-date material on Daily Kos is buried in threads, and updated by blog readers using the comment function. This raises some questions in my mind:

• Is this actual blogging, or merely commenting?
• What is the difference between a published post and nearly real-time conversation below a single-sentence post?

Some blogs I'm watching:

• DemConWatch
• techPresident, including a video tour of the media tent where the bloggers are hanging out, and watching the web watch the web at the DNC.
• Huffington Post politics blog
• Technorati listings of DNC blog activity

Some more questions:

• What blogs are you watching? What role do you see blogs playing in the political arena?
• Are bloggers really journalists?

I'm curious what everyone's thinking, so leave your comments and questions below. They might end up on the next episode of my new podcast.

Podcast Episode 1: 3 Rules for a good blog; Twittering vs. blogging

mp3 or stream

---

Show Notes

Links:

• This podcast on GCast.com


• from ProBlogger: Is Writing Great Content Enough to Build a Successful Blog?


• BlogIndiana 2008 Conference


• Twitter


• Odeo


• NY Times: The Year of the Political Blogger Has Arrived

Feedback? Add a comment to this post, and I'll be sure to share it in the next episode.

Stay tuned!

Travis Poling, the Podcast

LocalEyes: local-cosmopolitan visions

As I've written here before, living locally has entered my consciousness the more I consider how to best be in the world. Living off of local food, supporting local businesses, walking local streets, engaging in local discourses all are ways in which we can exist in a more sustainable way. If Indiana stopped trucking in meat or produce from California or the Amazon, we would enjoy cleaner air and water, and would live healthier without the chemical pesticides and preservatives that make long distance diets possible. Getting to know our neighborhoods and neighbors gives us a strong sense of belonging to a place and a community, and interpersonal networks would become much stronger and more reliable. If a disaster were to strike your town, do you know who you would call on for help? Would your neighbors feel free to come to you when they were in need? Do you share garden space or produce, or automobiles to cut back on purchase and consumption of fossil fuels? Do you know your local artists, business owners, politicians, or those who hold no social position at all? The benefits of living exactly where you are far outweigh the convenience of fast food, fast media and fast highways. If our world is to have a chance at survival, we must know our own backyard, and live deeply within it.

At the same time, I have increasingly come to see myself, as one of the earliest philosophers of Cosmopolitanism, Diogenes said, as "a citizen of the world." Whenever July 4 comes around, and at most other time of the year for that matter, I have a hard time identifying as an American, or at least as a patriotic one. If there is one nation that does not see itself as a citizen of the world, it is the United States. Our government has done so much harm to those beyond our borders that it is difficult to say that we have the good of the world in mind when we act in the international arena, especially with force. If I had to pin down my identity with a place in terms of its outlook toward the rest of the world, it would be my home state of Pennsylvania. Founded by William Penn, a pacifist Quaker, Pennsylvania was purchased fairly from the indigenous tribes. Penn began a colony of religious freedom and popular democracy with the understanding that all humanity is linked together in a way that demands respect, even love, for those who are distinctly "Other." Cosmopolitanism does not mean heterogeneity amidst local cultures, but instead encourages each local culture to live in whatever way is most true to their own identity, while allowing every other group that same right. If we lived in a world where every inhabitant saw themselves as fellow citizens of one planet, war would--if not cease altogether--drastically decrease. Aggression between nations would dwindle, and people of various faiths, genders, classes and ethnicities would respect each other much more than any time in modern history.

The local creature is also the cosmopolitan, for both are connected, just as each person and each place are connected. Being local-cosmopolitan is necessary for the survival of our world. Our technology and media must become open and available to all, for the good of all, rather than remain in the hands of the few and powerful. Our art, film and literature, which promotes the universal in the particular--the global in the local--must be given priority over the manufacture of weapons and control of natural resources. Our very life depends on it.

Blog Geek: live locally, blog locally: placeblogging

I stumbled across a website called Placeblogger. Their description of a placeblog gives me something to consider:

A placeblog is an act of sustained attention to a particular place over time...Placeblogs are sometimes called "hyperlocal sites" because some of them focus on news events and items that cover a particular neighborhood in great detail...Placeblogs, however, are about something broader than news alone. They're about the lived experience of a place. That experience may be news, or it may simply be about that part of our lives that isn't news but creates the texture of our daily lives: our commute, where we eat, conversations with our neighbors, the irritations and delights of living in a particular place among particular people...Placeblogs spring from a fiercely non-generic America that's not about big-box retailers or the type of polarizing discussion about politics, culture, and the economy that's the product of journalism that happens at the 30,000 foot level. Often, they are a delightful and vivid look at cities, towns, and neighborhoods from an insider's point of view.

BlogGeek: local community bloggers

Thanks to Chris for adding this blog to his list of Richmond/Wayne County blogs. Wouldn't it be cool to have a gathering of Wayne County Bloggers? I think so.

LocalEyes: bike commuting

Note to self: Read Aaron's post on bike commuting in Richmond (and Mark's posts too). And then try it.

UPDATE August 24, 2008
Mark has a blog all about biking as transportation.

LocalEyes: richmond a great city? depends on the people

For kicks I checked out Blogger founder Evan William's blog. I like to keep up with what geeks with good ideas are coming up with. I found this thought provoking quote from an article by Paul Graham he links to:

Great cities attract ambitious people. You can sense it when you walk around one. In a hundred subtle ways, the city sends you a message: you could do more; you should try harder.

According to this definition, my city of Richmond, Indiana is a great city. Walking through downtown and other neighborhoods, the streets feel fertile and ready for growth. The city cries out, "Do more! We can be great!" Thanks to some wonderfully ambitious folk who've moved in, and many who've never left, I see Richmond as a great place to be.

These people include Jim Hair, Chris Hardie, Anna Lisa Gross, Mark Stosberg.

I should disclose that these links are sites or blogs of my personal friends; but that does not diminish the work they've done. I know there are other people like them that I am leaving out of the list.

And so, dear reader, help me list (and link, if possible) in the comments those who are helping Richmond move closer to being a great city.

Or comment with other reflections about Richmond, or your own city.

What, if anything, makes your city great?

BlogGeek: hump day activites

Here's the question:
How did you spend your Hump Day?

My answer:
Had a conversation about Kinsey, and spin-the-bottle at age 30; even though both would likely qualify as something a man should never do after turning 30.

Also included on the list might be blogging about a meme that I found on a blog of memes! Does it still count? Anyway, blog about your Hump Day, and pass it on.

will the olympics ever be open source?

I get only broadcast tv at my house. There is no cable or satellite as of yet, but that may change thanks to the crafty government conspiracy plan to switch everything over to digital in February. Since we only get three channels, and none of them ae showing the Olympic Games--which I love!--I went out and bought a digital converter box for the tv. But the digital box failed! Apparently, a channel must come in crystal clear for the digital box or tv to pick it up at all. (And they call this progress?)

I decided to go to my local computer lab--which runs on Linux Ubuntu, went to NBC's Olympics page and clicked on "video" hoping to see some 69.9 mph table tennis balls. Sadly, I was rejected by NBC with this onscreen message:

When will American media outlets wake up and realize that not everyone relies on Windows or Mac, and that many are switching over to Linux? No doubt it will occur long after the digital switch-over, and by then I'll be sipping tropical drinks as I sit back and watch my cable tv, with the Olympics on five different channels.

BlogGeek: check out jott.com where...

Check out jott.com where you can call in from any phone and it will pick your voice and make it a text message that will be sent to anywhere including this blog post right here. Finally the days of awesome voice recognition are here. listen

Powered by Jott

Blog Geek: 100 mile radius meme

I wasn't thinking of it at the time, but the 100 mile radius potluck I recently blogged about is an internet meme--an idea that spreads over the web in a viral fashion.

The potluck was announced on Progressive Wayne County, and was blogged by local friends Chris (who moderates Progressive Wayne County), Becky and Mark. Additionally, it showed up on an aptly named blog Going Local from a town just under 100 miles from Richmond, got some chat on an Indy-based website, and showed up on YouTube.

I've always thought of memes as spreading quickly over a widely dispersed network, but this one has so far been highly localized. It makes me think more highly of the web as a legitimate local organizing tool. The only problem in this instance is that all of the bloggers listed (except myself and the Going Local blogger) all work together in the same local small web design company, where one might expect ideas to be shared around.

So what does it mean when many more people, friends and strangers alike, all pick up on a meme with the energy and numbers behind those catching and spreading Paris Hilton's more-(or-less?)-political-than-meets-the-eye "ad", or icanhascheezburger. What if we could harness that kind of impact to actually improve our local communities? A Google search of "100 mile radius potluck" brought back some signs that the idea of the potluck itself, not only the blogging of the ones in Richmond, is a meme whose impact has spread beyond the geek in front of the screen. See the meme as it is incarnated in Berea, Kentucky, Seattle, and Brooklyn. Maybe Malcolm Gladwell is on to something. And maybe the Richmond blogosphere (and brick-and-mortar world) will be the tipping point that the 100 mile diet needs to spread like the dandelion seeds in my backyard, one neighbor at a time.

what a long necktie you're wearing

This strip from garfield minus garfield pretty much sums up how I've felt about neckties for over two decades, long before my beginning my internship this summer, for which I've ended up wearing a tie every week.

My earliest memory of wearing a necktie took place on an Easter Sunday ages and ages ago, when I didn't know that everything my family said in the privacy of our own home was not necessarily fit to be repeated beyond our front door. To be fair, I was five or six years old. That morning I had borrowed a clip-on tie from my older, taller brother. Naturally, the tie hung a little low down my torso, and my family laughed together--again, in the privacy of our own home--about the very specific anatomical region to which the tie extended. When we showed up at church, a kind elderly woman complimented my Easter outfit. I responded by telling her in no uncertain terms where my tie pointed! She looked at me and asked, "What did you say?" Fortunately, my dad was paying close attention and intercepted my repetition with, "He said 'Thank you very much.'"



Twenty-five years later, I am still not a huge fan of ties, and had to look up how to actually tie a tie. Perhaps the memory of embarrassing my family kept me from really getting into ties. Or maybe it's because it seems silly and wasteful to spend so much money on a piece of cloth that ties uncomfortably around my neck. Anyway, I was finally in a job this summer where I was much better off if I wore a tie, so I allowed myself to buy some pretty fly looking neckties and a colored oxford shirt so I could at least feel hip while I was looking respectable.

Now that my internship is nearly over, I don't know if I'll keep up with the neckties or not. At least now they're the proper length. I also know never to tell my son, if my partner and I ever have one, that his tie points to his ____, lest he be scared off of them forever (ties, I mean--not ___s!). But then again, would it really be so bad to train the next generations to realize that, quite frankly, neckties are pretty stupid? Is it ethical to traumatize a child to encourage a simpler lifestyle? Or does it cease to be simple living when it centers around unresolved childhood anxiety? Opinions?

LocalEyes: where are you eating from?

Last month some friends threw a 100 mile radius potluck, and the next one is tomorrow. To come, you can bring any dish you want, so long as all of the ingredients are produced within 100 miles of where you live. This sounds like a novel idea, but if I had to make an educated guess, I'd have to say that eating food made beyond one's immediate locale is a fairly new concept. Of course civilizations traded with one another for longer than we probably realize, most food likely came from one's own plot until we came up with mass shipping infrastructures and had such a thing as famine in a time of plenty.

I've been eating in restaurants a lot lately, which expands my food radius. And I also buy most food from the neighborhood grocery store. While it can't be very good for the planet to get so much from so far away (tomatoes hardly ripen naturally in Indiana till about now, and yet I don't always pay attention to the seasons when I'm eating my fresh veges in February), I think it does help that I stay in my neighborhood to get food (even if it is shipped in from California), and often go to the next neighborhood over to the farmer's market to get produce grown even closer to home. And while I value organic food, I am more hesitant to buy an organic tomato from Mexico over a local hothouse tomato. I imagine that all of the fossil fuels that it takes to get the produce to the Midwestern US cancel out a large portion of the wholesome growth of that perfect fruit thousands of miles away. It's also usually a lot less expensive to buy the local produce over the organic selections, making local the more responsible purchase in my view. Until everyone eats only organic food grown within 100 miles of their home (I would say in their back yard, but urban living and long working hours make that much less feasible), we should at least be able to eat what comes from our region., saving us both income and natural resources, and, ultimately, our home.

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