Category Archives: Technology

Technology

Twitter, Plurk, Bless You

1 Comment

I’ve been using the mini-blog/messaging app Twitter a lot lately. You could say I’m addicted. I’ve also noticed that while Twitter has had problems in the past few weeks, lots of folks are checking out competitors like Plurk. I’m not a super-techie so maybe I’m missing this, but I want to know when someone is going to come up with a non-exclusive standard for the thing we do that I call Twittering.

Meaning, a bunch of years ago Blogger.com was one of the main blogging tools in town, but they weren’t the only one in town. You could still blog without them and read blogs without them. The medium triumphed, not necessarily the Blogger brand (and I imagine a lot of the usability of the blog brand has to do with RSS, yet another standard).

I want to see the same thing happen with Twitter. I want the medium to triumph, not just Twitter or Plurk or whoever. I don’t have time to reinvest in a new platform every so many months and it seems stupid to spread users of this medium across multiple platforms. I should be able to get messages from all my friends regardless of their system (hmm, kind of like cell phones). I’m not sure when, if or how that’s going to happen, but I hope it does.

God, Church & Stuff, Internet

Rapture Notification System

4 Comments

I saw this mentioned earlier this week but didn’t pay any attention to it until I saw the url: http://www.youvebeenleftbehind.com.

For $40 per year you can join a rapture notification system that will notify your heathen friends and family that Jesus has returned and taken you back to heaven with him and those punk sinners have a second chance:

We have set up a system to send documents by the email, to the addresses you provide, 6 days after the “Rapture” of the Church. This occurs when 3 of our 5 team members scattered around the U.S fail to log in over a 3 day period. Another 3 days are given to fail safe any false triggering of the system.

Wow. I know Christians are wacky, but come on. All that’s missing is the Timothy LaHaye endorsement, maybe a free copy of Left Behind when you sign up.

My favorite part is that the whole thing is triggered when their team members fail to log in. I can just see the rapture false alarms that will cause untold panic (and laughter). Or perhaps “This is a test of the emergency rapture system…”

(link via wide_awake)

Blogging

Disconnected

Leave a comment

My blogging of late has felt a bit disconnected. Like I’m not fully communicating what I want to say, or at least not communicating it well. Maybe it’s more that I’m blogging just to get the ideas out and written down, rather than working on effectively communicating those ideas. That would make sense, as I feel like I’ve had a lot of thoughts and ideas lately that have slipped away without being captured in a blog post (not that all ideas need or should be blog posts, but many of them were ideas I wanted to share).

Bleh. I don’t like blogging like that. It’s not fun to read and it’s not much fun to write. I’ll see if I can find a bit more focus.

Art, Blogging, Domicile, Family, History

Twitter, Moving, History & Art

Leave a comment

Blogging has definitely slowed lately. I blame Twitter—I’ve been enjoying its strength as a place to make temporary, pithy comments that don’t require much time or thought investment. Maybe that says something about how valuable/worthless my Twitter posts are, though I do try to avoid the Twitter equivalent of the cat blog and at least keep my tweets entertaining. Not sure if I’m accomplishing that, though 191 people don’t seem to be too bored.

Our big Memorial Day weekend was spent helping my brother’s family move. This is a borderline psychotic admission, but I think moving is kind of fun. Yes, it’s incredibly stressful (for those moving). But it’s an interesting opportunity to cram all your stuff into the back of a truck and redistribute it into a new space. It always makes me realize how much crap I own and wonder if I really need all that crap (and hopefully I spent enough time minimizing the crap before the move). All that said crap also makes me realize how unorganized I am, and how stuff I thought I needed so dearly I really don’t need. There’s plenty of stuff I haven’t touched since moving into our current home a little over a year ago, and that helps me let go a little bit.

Continue reading Twitter, Moving, History & Art →

Internet

Don’t Believe Everything You Hear

2 Comments

It’s time for a little education. Just because you see something on the news, hear it in a politician’s speech, find it on the Internet or even read it on my blog—that does not mean it’s true.

NPR messed it up, by way of an interviewee.

Politicians of every stripe have been known to mess things up, from George W. Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech to Hillary Clinton’s sniper fire.

And the Internet—yikes, where to begin? From e-mail forwards, to uninformed blog entries, to out-of-context YouTube videos, there’s plenty to distrust.

The lesson is to have some healthy skepticism.

Continue reading Don’t Believe Everything You Hear →

Blogging

What Kind of Blog Are You?

5 Comments

I’ve been blogging for nearly 10 years and read a lot of blogs. Over those years I’ve been and read a lot of different types of blogs. Many of those types have been explained before, like the political blog or the niche blog or the insult blog. But I’ve seen quite a few other, much less famous types. So the question becomes, what type of blog is yours? (a not-so-complete list)

The Cat Blog
The blog that covers the mundane, like what your cat is doing.

The Bitch Blog
The blog that’s nothing but bitching, damn it!

The Mom Blog
Much like a cat blog, this type covers mundane things your children do.

The Introspective, What the Hell are You Talking About Blog
The blog that no one understands, except maybe the writer.

The I Have an Opinion About Everything Blog
I think the title says it all.

The I Haven’t Blogged in a While Blog
The blog with infrequent updates, all of which apologize for not blogging in a while.

The Ooh Shiny Blog
The blog that posts every new video, link or web trend, with no original thought of their own.

Blogging

It’s Official: I’m Dot Com!

5 Comments

Kevin D. Hendricks is now officially dot com. After nearly 10 years of having my blog hosted on other sites and being stuck in a secondary directory, I’ve finally moved out on my own with my own site and my own url: KevinDHendricks.com.

It’s a little new, a little scary.

I’ve also switched from Movable Type to WordPress in the process. So far so good, though I’m sure much will be broken (and ugly) for a while until I get it all sorted out.

Update: And I hope the RSS feed works. It should subscribe you to my FeedBurner feed, http://feeds.feedburner.com/kevindhendricks. So far I can’t tell if it is or not.